Exa MCP: web search and page reading for agents

What it does

An AI model does not know today's news. A search connector fixes that. Exa's connector gives your agent two tools: search the web, and fetch the text of a page.

Who it helps

Anyone who does research with an agent: market scans, background reading, checking recent changes.

How to start

Install the plugin, then ask a question that needs fresh facts. Say: "List the sources with links."

Be careful

Questions leave your computer and go to Exa. Free use is limited, and an API key can cost money. Read the sources yourself before you rely on a claim.

How to install

$ claude plugin install exa@claude-plugins-official

$ codex mcp add exa --url https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp

How to use it

Ask for research that needs current facts, for example "find three recent articles about rooftop solar rules in Thailand and summarise them". Ask the agent to list its sources.

What to watch out for

Your search questions are sent to Exa's service. Do not put private details in them.
Heavy use may need an Exa API key and may cost money.
Pages can contain hidden instructions for the agent. Check important facts at the source.

Licence and author

Licence: MIT
Author: Exa
Source code: github.com/exa-labs/exa-mcp-server

How we tested it

We installed it on an empty test computer on 12 Oct 2026. Partly tested: installed in a clean test system, but its main features need an account or key we did not use.

Test level

No real search was run, so we do not know the free limits or the result quality. The hosted URL in the Codex line was not called.

Technical details of the test

Date: 12 Oct 2026
Method: Installed the exa plugin with the Claude Code command line in a clean container with no account (it showed as enabled). We also started npx -y exa-mcp-server, sent the MCP initialize and tools/list requests, and it answered with 2 tools (web_search_exa and web_fetch_exa). We made no search call.

Checked again on 12 Oct 2026

Sources

github.com/exa-labs/exa-mcp-server