Exa Search Tool

The ExaSearchTool lets CrewAI agents search the web using Exa, the fastest and most accurate web search API. It returns the most relevant results for any query, with options for token-efficient highlights and full page content.

Installation

Install the CrewAI tools package:

pip install 'crewai[tools]'

Environment Variables

Set your Exa API key as an environment variable:

export EXA_API_KEY='your_exa_api_key'

Get an API key from the Exa dashboard.

Example Usage

Here’s how to use the ExaSearchTool within a CrewAI agent:

import os
from crewai import Agent, Task, Crew
from crewai_tools import ExaSearchTool

# Initialize the tool
exa_tool = ExaSearchTool()

# Create an agent that uses the tool
researcher = Agent(
    role='Research Analyst',
    goal='Find the latest information on any topic',
    backstory='An expert researcher who finds the most relevant and up-to-date information.',
    tools=[exa_tool],
    verbose=True
)

# Create a task for the agent
research_task = Task(
    description='Find the top 3 recent breakthroughs in quantum computing.',
    expected_output='A summary of the top 3 breakthroughs with source URLs.',
    agent=researcher
)

# Form the crew and kick it off
crew = Crew(
    agents=[researcher],
    tasks=[research_task],
    verbose=True
)

result = crew.kickoff()
print(result)

Configuration Options

The ExaSearchTool accepts the following parameters during initialization:

type (str, optional): The search type to use. Defaults to "auto". Options: "auto", "instant", "fast", "deep".
highlights (bool or dict, optional): Return token-efficient excerpts most relevant to the query instead of the full page. Defaults to True. Pass a dict like {"max_characters": 4000} to configure, or False to disable.
content (bool, optional): Whether to include full page content in results. Defaults to False.
api_key (str, optional): Your Exa API key. Falls back to the EXA_API_KEY environment variable if not provided.
base_url (str, optional): Custom API server URL. Falls back to the EXA_BASE_URL environment variable if not provided.

When calling the tool (or when an agent invokes it), the following search parameters are available:

search_query (str): Required. The search query string.
start_published_date (str, optional): Filter results published after this date (ISO 8601 format, e.g. "2024-01-01").
end_published_date (str, optional): Filter results published before this date (ISO 8601 format).
include_domains (list[str], optional): A list of domains to restrict the search to.

Advanced Usage

For most agent workflows we recommend highlights — it returns the most relevant excerpts from each result and uses far fewer tokens than full page content:

# Get token-efficient excerpts most relevant to the query
exa_tool = ExaSearchTool(
    highlights=True,
    type="auto",
)

# Use it in an agent
agent = Agent(
    role="Researcher",
    goal="Answer questions with current web data",
    tools=[exa_tool]
)

For thorough, multi-step searches, use type="deep":

exa_tool = ExaSearchTool(
    highlights=True,
    type="deep",
)

For more on choosing between highlights and full content, see the Exa search best practices.

Using Exa via MCP

You can also connect your agent to Exa’s hosted MCP server. Pass your API key with the x-api-key header:

from crewai import Agent
from crewai.mcp import MCPServerHTTP

agent = Agent(
    role="Research Analyst",
    goal="Find and analyze information on the web",
    backstory="Expert researcher with access to Exa's tools",
    mcps=[
        MCPServerHTTP(
            url="https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp",
            headers={"x-api-key": "YOUR_EXA_API_KEY"},
        ),
    ],
)

Get your API key from the Exa dashboard. For more on MCP in CrewAI, see the MCP overview.

Features

Token-Efficient Highlights: Get the most relevant excerpts from each result, ~10x fewer tokens than full text
Semantic Search: Find results based on meaning, not just keywords
Full Content Retrieval: Get the full text of web pages alongside search results
Date Filtering: Limit results to specific time periods with published date filters
Domain Filtering: Restrict searches to specific domains