Yesterday-AI Exa Search 🔍🧠
Exa is a semantic search engine built for AI. Unlike traditional search (keyword matching), Exa understands meaning and returns full-text content -- not just titles and snippets.
When to Use
| Use Exa | Use web_search (Brave) |
|---|---|
| Deep research, full article text | Quick facts, simple lookups |
| "Find articles about X" | "What is X?" |
| Competitor analysis | URL discovery |
| Technical deep-dives | News headlines |
Usage
# Basic search (5 results)
./skills/exa-search-api/scripts/search.sh "query" 5
# Or via curl directly
curl -s -X POST "https://api.exa.ai/search" \
-H "x-api-key: $EXA_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"query": "your query", "num_results": 5, "type": "auto", "use_autoprompt": true, "contents": {"text": {"max_characters": 5000}}}'
Output
Returns JSON with full results:
{
"results": [
{
"title": "Article Title",
"url": "https://...",
"text": "Full article content up to 5000 chars...",
"score": 0.95
}
]
}
Key Advantages Over Other Tools
- Full text -- Not just snippets. Get the actual article content.
- Semantic -- Understands meaning, not just keywords.
- Autoprompt -- Rewrites your query for better results.
- Filters -- Date ranges, domains, content type.
Setup
- Get API key at https://exa.ai
- Store key securely:
echo "your-key" > ~/.openclaw/secrets/exa.key chmod 600 ~/.openclaw/secrets/exa.key - Set env var or pass to script:
export EXA_API_KEY=$(cat ~/.openclaw/secrets/exa.key)
Depends On
None (standalone). Complements web-scraper for pages Exa can't reach.
Authored by ManniTheRaccoon. Tested 2026-02-20. 🦝