How to Connect Exa Remote MCP to Windsurf
Add Exa's remote MCP server to Windsurf in about a minute.
Step-by-step
- Edit mcp_config.jsonAdd the
serverUrlconfig above to~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.jsonand refresh in Cascade. - AuthorizeAdd an
Authorization: Bearer <your-key>header in the server's config โ get the credential from https://docs.exa.ai/reference/exa-mcp. - VerifyVerify in the browser: paste
https://mcp.exa.ai/mcpinto remotemcp.net/inspector and run initialize + tools/list.
Troubleshooting OAuth / 401
- A
401 Unauthorizedon first connect is normal โ the endpoint is OAuth-protected; let Windsurf finish the browser consent flow. - If the consent window never opens, remove and re-add the server, then retry.
- Check the exact challenge at our OAuth debugger.
- Run the live endpoint through the online inspector to see the raw JSON-RPC exchange.
Or add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:
{
"mcpServers": {
"exa": {
"url": "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp",
"headers": {
"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
}
}
}
}claude mcp add --transport http exa https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp
With credential header:
claude mcp add --transport http exa https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
Or add to .vscode/mcp.json:
{
"servers": {
"exa": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp",
"headers": {
"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
}
}
}
}- Open Settings โ Connectors (Integrations) โ Add Custom Connector.
- Paste the endpoint URL:
https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp - Provide your API key / Bearer token when prompted.
Bridge the remote endpoint into stdio with mcp-remote in claude_desktop_config.json:
{
"mcpServers": {
"exa": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"mcp-remote",
"https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp",
"--header",
"Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
]
}
}
}Add to ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json:
{
"mcpServers": {
"exa": {
"serverUrl": "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp",
"headers": {
"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
}
}
}
}Tools exposed by Exa MCP (4)
| Tool | Safety | Description | Parameters |
|---|---|---|---|
| web_search_exa | ๐ข Read | Semantic web search tuned for LLM consumption. | query*: stringnumResults: number |
| research_paper_search | ๐ข Read | Search academic and research papers. | query*: stringnumResults: number |
| company_research | ๐ข Read | Research a company and return structured findings. | companyName*: string |
| crawling_exa | ๐ข Read | Crawl a URL and return clean extracted content. | url*: string |
Connect Exa MCP to another client
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