Exa Search

Exa Search

OpenClaw supports Exa AI as a web_search provider. Exa offers neural, keyword, and hybrid search modes with built-in content extraction (highlights, text, summaries).

Get an API key

1. Create an account

   Sign up at exa.ai and generate an API key from your dashboard.

2. Store the key

   Set EXA_API_KEY in the Gateway environment, or configure via:

   openclaw configure --section web

Config

{
  plugins: {
    entries: {
      exa: {
        config: {
          webSearch: {
            apiKey: "exa-...", // optional if EXA_API_KEY is set
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
  tools: {
    web: {
      search: {
        provider: "exa",
      },
    },
  },
}

Environment alternative: set EXA_API_KEY in the Gateway environment. For a gateway install, put it in ~/.openclaw/.env.

Tool parameters

Parameter	Description
query	Search query (required)
count	Results to return (1-100)
type	Search mode: auto, neural, fast, deep, deep-reasoning, or instant
freshness	Time filter: day, week, month, or year
date_after	Results after this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
date_before	Results before this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
contents	Content extraction options (see below)

Content extraction

Exa can return extracted content alongside search results. Pass a contents object to enable:

await web_search({
  query: "transformer architecture explained",
  type: "neural",
  contents: {
    text: true, // full page text
    highlights: { numSentences: 3 }, // key sentences
    summary: true, // AI summary
  },
});

Contents option	Type	Description
text	boolean | { maxCharacters }	Extract full page text
highlights	boolean | { maxCharacters, query, numSentences, highlightsPerUrl }	Extract key sentences
summary	boolean | { query }	AI-generated summary

Search modes

Mode	Description
auto	Exa picks the best mode (default)
neural	Semantic/meaning-based search
fast	Quick keyword search
deep	Thorough deep search
deep-reasoning	Deep search with reasoning
instant	Fastest results

Notes

• If no contents option is provided, Exa defaults to { highlights: true } so results include key sentence excerpts
• Results preserve highlightScores and summary fields from the Exa API response when available
• Result descriptions are resolved from highlights first, then summary, then full text — whichever is available
• freshness and date_after/date_before cannot be combined — use one time-filter mode
• Up to 100 results can be returned per query (subject to Exa search-type limits)
• Results are cached for 15 minutes by default (configurable via cacheTtlMinutes)
• Exa is an official API integration with structured JSON responses

Related

• Web Search overview — all providers and auto-detection
• Brave Search — structured results with country/language filters
• Perplexity Search — structured results with domain filtering