Prerequisites 📋

Before you begin, ensure you have:

• Node.js (v18 or higher)
• Claude Desktop installed
• An Exa API key
• Git installed

You can verify your Node.js installation by running:

node
## Installation 🛠️

### NPM Installation

```bash
npm install -g exa-mcp-server

Using Smithery

To install the Exa MCP server for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:

npx -y @smithery/cli install exa --client claude

Manual Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/exa-labs/exa-mcp-server.git
cd exa-mcp-server

2. Install dependencies:

npm install

3. Build the project:

npm run build

4. Create a global link (this makes the server executable from anywhere):

npm link

Configuration ⚙️

1. Configure Claude Desktop to recognize the Exa MCP server

You can find claude_desktop_config.json inside the settings of Claude Desktop app:

Open the Claude Desktop app and enable Developer Mode from the top-left menu bar.

Once enabled, open Settings (also from the top-left menu bar) and navigate to the Developer Option, where you'll find the Edit Config button. Clicking it will open the claude_desktop_config.json file, allowing you to make the necessary edits.

OR (if you want to open claude_desktop_config.json from terminal)

For macOS:

1. Open your Claude Desktop configuration:

code ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

For Windows:

1. Open your Claude Desktop configuration:

code %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add the Exa server configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "exa": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["/path/to/exa-mcp-server/build/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "EXA_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace your-api-key-here with your actual Exa API key from dashboard.exa.ai/api-keys.

3. Restart Claude Desktop

For the changes to take effect:

1. Completely quit Claude Desktop (not just close the window)
2. Start Claude Desktop again
3. Look for the 🔌 icon to verify the Exa server is connected

Usage 🎯

Once configured, you can ask Claude to perform web searches. Here are some example prompts:

Can you search for recent developments in quantum computing?

Search for and summarize the latest news about artificial intelligence startups in new york.

Find and analyze recent research papers about climate change solutions.

Search for today's breaking news about tech.

Search for the top 10 AI research papers from 2023, and only use live crawling as a fallback.

Search for electric vehicles and return 3 results, always using live crawling.

The server will:

1. Process the search request
2. Query the Exa API with optimal settings (including live crawling)
3. Return formatted results to Claude
4. Cache the search for future reference