Exa AI Web Search MCP

🛡️ Official✓ VerifiedStreamable HTTPAPI Key4 tools·Degraded8ms·30d uptime: 100%·Last checked 18m ago

Exa MCP (mcp.exa.ai) brings semantic web search, research paper lookup and content crawling to agents — authorized by passing your Exa API key.

https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp

Provider: Exa ↗
Source: https://github.com/exa-labs/exa-mcp-server ↗
Categories: 🔍 Documentation, Search & Context

中文简介

Exa 托管 MCP 服务器，提供 AI 原生网页搜索。支持语义搜索、论文检索、公司调研与页面抓取（需 API Key）。

Streamable HTTPhttps://mcp.exa.ai/mcp

Install in Cursor →

Or add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "exa": {
      "url": "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

🔬 Test Live in Online Inspector 🔐 Audit OAuth 2.1 Config

🧰 Tools exposed by Exa MCP (4)

Tool	Safety	Description	Parameters
web_search_exa	🟢 Read	Semantic web search tuned for LLM consumption.	query*: stringnumResults: number
research_paper_search	🟢 Read	Search academic and research papers.	query*: stringnumResults: number
company_research	🟢 Read	Research a company and return structured findings.	companyName*: string
crawling_exa	🟢 Read	Crawl a URL and return clean extracted content.	url*: string

🔐 OAuth 2.1 & Security

Auth type: API Key
Dynamic Client Registration: —
PKCE S256: —
Protected resource metadata: https://mcp.exa.ai/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource (expected location)

🔐 Audit OAuth 2.1 Config →

🧩 Recommended Agent Skills

Web research skills ↗

📖 Guide

Exa MCP — Remote MCP Server

Exa's remote MCP wraps its semantic search API for agents: web search tuned for LLM consumption, research-paper search, company research and URL crawling. There is no OAuth flow — you attach an Exa API key, typically via a header or a key-parameterized URL configured in your client.

Endpoint & Transport

Endpoint URL: https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp
Transport: Streamable HTTP

Authentication

Exa MCP uses API-key authentication rather than OAuth. Get a key from https://docs.exa.ai/reference/exa-mcp, then configure your client to send it — most clients accept an Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY header, and mcp-remote supports --header arguments.

Available Tools (4)

Tool	Safety	Description
`web_search_exa`	read	Semantic web search tuned for LLM consumption.
`research_paper_search`	read	Search academic and research papers.
`company_research`	read	Research a company and return structured findings.
`crawling_exa`	read	Crawl a URL and return clean extracted content.

Connect in 30 Seconds

Claude Code — one command:

claude mcp add --transport http exa https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp

Cursor — add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{ "mcpServers": { "exa": { "url": "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp" } } }

VS Code — add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{ "servers": { "exa": { "type": "http", "url": "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp" } } }

Claude Desktop & stdio clients — bridge with mcp-remote:

{ "mcpServers": { "exa": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp"] } } }

Troubleshooting

401/403 responses — your credential is missing or rejected. Regenerate the key/token and make sure it is sent as an Authorization: Bearer header on every request, including the initialize call.
"Session expired" / stale Mcp-Session-Id — just re-send initialize; stateless clients can ignore session headers entirely.
Auth is API-key based, not OAuth — configure a key in your client's header/env settings.
A free Exa tier exists for low-volume usage.

🚀 How to Connect

Copy the Exa MCP endpoint URL
The remote endpoint is https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp.
Add it to your MCP client
Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http exa https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp. Cursor: add "exa": { "url": "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp" } under mcpServers in ~/.cursor/mcp.json. Other clients work similarly.
Configure your credential
Generate an API key at https://docs.exa.ai/reference/exa-mcp and add an Authorization: Bearer <token> header to the server's config (supported by Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf and mcp-remote --header).
Verify with the online inspector
Paste https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp into remotemcp.net/inspector, run initialize and tools/list, and confirm Exa MCP's 4 tools respond.

❓ FAQ

What is the Exa MCP remote MCP endpoint?

The primary endpoint is https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp. It is an official first-party server operated by Exa, speaking the Streamable HTTP transport.

How do I authenticate with Exa MCP?

Exa MCP expects a credential sent as an Authorization: Bearer header. Generate the API key in your Exa account and add it to your client's headers.

I'm getting a 401 Unauthorized from Exa MCP — what's wrong?

Your Bearer credential is missing, malformed or expired. Confirm it is attached to every request — including initialize — and that no proxy is stripping the Authorization header.

Which MCP clients work with Exa MCP?

Any client that supports remote MCP servers: Cursor, Claude Code (`claude mcp add --transport http exa https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp`), VS Code Copilot, ChatGPT connectors, Windsurf, and Claude Desktop via the `mcp-remote` bridge.

What tools does Exa MCP expose?

4 tools are cataloged in this directory — including `web_search_exa`, `research_paper_search`, `company_research` and more. Use our online inspector to fetch the live tool list straight from the endpoint.

🔗 Connect Guides

Cursor

Connect Exa MCP →

📛 Embed Status Badge in README

[![Remote MCP Status](https://remotemcp.net/api/badge/status/exa.svg)](https://remotemcp.net/servers/exa)

[![Test in Inspector](https://remotemcp.net/api/badge/inspect/exa.svg)](https://remotemcp.net/inspector?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmcp.exa.ai%2Fmcp)

Related Servers

Cloudflare Docs MCPCloudflare

Cloudflare's free, authless documentation MCP server. Agents can search the full Cloudflare docs corpus — no account or token required.

https://docs.mcp.cloudflare.com/mcp

🛡️ Official✓ VerifiedHTTP + SSEPublic · No Auth2 toolsOnline10ms

DeepWiki MCPCognition AI (Devin)

Cognition Devin's free DeepWiki MCP. Ask questions and read AI-generated wiki documentation for any public GitHub repository — no auth required.

https://mcp.deepwiki.com/mcp

🧑‍💻 Community✓ VerifiedHTTP + SSEPublic · No Auth3 toolsOnline73ms

Context7 MCPUpstash

Upstash Context7's free, no-auth MCP server. Fetches up-to-date, version-specific library documentation straight into your agent's context.

https://mcp.context7.com/mcp

🧑‍💻 Community✓ VerifiedStreamable HTTPPublic · No Auth2 toolsOnline310ms

Hugging Face MCPHugging Face

Hugging Face's official remote MCP server at huggingface.co/mcp. Search models, datasets, Spaces and papers with your HF access token.

https://huggingface.co/mcp

🛡️ Official✓ VerifiedStreamable HTTPBearer Token4 toolsOnline108ms