Exa Search
A RocketRide tool node that gives an AI agent live semantic web search through Exa when it needs fresher or broader results than its built-in knowledge.
About Exa
Exa is a search product built for finding and retrieving web content. It is known for semantic search, which matches a query by meaning as well as by keywords.
What it does
This node exposes Exa search only as an agent tool; it has no pipeline lanes. Choose it when an agent needs focused web research with domain or publication-date filters, rather than page extraction from a URL it already knows. Each search returns compact result metadata and can include retrieved text.
As a tool
The tool server prefix is exa by default. It registers exactly one function:
| Function | Description |
|---|---|
exa.exa_search | Searches Exa for web pages matching a natural-language or keyword query. |
query is required and must be non-empty. Optional num_results is clamped to 1–50;
type accepts auto, neural, or keyword; use_autoprompt and include_text
override the node defaults. Calls may also pass domain include/exclude lists and ISO 8601
start/end publication dates.
On success the function returns success, the query, the number returned, and result
objects containing title, URL, score, publication date, author, and text when available.
A blank query or an HTTP failure returns success: false, an empty result list, and an
error message instead of raising an exception.
Configuration
Configure the API key first, then use the remaining values as sensible defaults for tool calls. An agent can override the result count, search type, autoprompt choice, and text inclusion on an individual search.
Number of Results
The default is 10 and the accepted range is 1–50. Raise it when a broad comparison needs more candidates; lower it when the agent only needs the most likely sources and should avoid spending context on a long result list.
Search Type
auto is the default. Use neural for concept-oriented questions and keyword when
exact terms matter. An unsupported per-call value falls back to auto, so use one of the
three accepted values when a particular retrieval style is required.
Autoprompt and text content
Autoprompt and full text both default to enabled. Keep autoprompt on when the query can benefit from Exa's query optimization; turn it off when the agent must preserve an exact phrase. Keep text on when the agent needs material to read, but turn it off for lightweight URL discovery because returned text can substantially enlarge the result payload.
Authentication
Set API Key, or provide EXA_API_KEY on the engine host when the field is empty. A
key is required at startup and is sent in the x-api-key header for each search.
Notes
Retries
Requests use a 30-second timeout. Rate limits, server errors, and timeouts retry up to three times with 2-, 4-, and 8-second waits before the failure is returned to the agent.
Upstream docs
Experimental: this node is marked
experimentaland may change.
What it does
When an agent calls the exa_search tool, the node runs a real-time search against the
Exa /search REST API and hands back structured results: title, URL, text content,
relevance score, published date, and author.
Implemented with the requests library, no Exa SDK is used. Requests time out after
30 seconds and are retried up to 3 times with exponential backoff (2 s base delay) on
rate limits (HTTP 429), server errors (5xx), and timeouts. Failures are returned to the
agent as a structured {"success": false, "error": ...} result rather than raised.
The node has no pipeline lanes (lanes is {}). Only agent runtimes reach it, through
the invoke capability.
Configuration
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
apikey | string | Default empty. Exa API key (from https://exa.ai) |
numResults | integer | Default 10. Maximum number of search results to return (1-50) |
useAutoprompt | boolean | Default true. Let Exa optimize the query for better results |
searchType | string | Default "auto". Type of search to perform |
includeText | boolean | Default true. Include full text content in results |
The config values act as defaults, the agent can override num_results, type,
use_autoprompt, and include_text per call.
Available tools
exa_search
Search the web using Exa semantic search. query is the only required parameter.
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|---|
| exa_search | Search the web using Exa semantic search. Provide a natural language query to find relevant web pages. Returns structured results with title, URL, text content, relevance score, and published date. |
Returns an object with success, query, num_results, results (array of
{title, url, score, published_date, author, text?}, text only when content was
requested and returned), and error on failure.
Authentication
Drop your Exa API key into the API Key config field (grab one at https://exa.ai).
The field is encrypted at rest and masked in the UI. Alternatively, set the
EXA_API_KEY environment variable on the engine host, the config field takes
precedence when both are set. The key is sent to the Exa API in the x-api-key
request header.
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Schema
| Field | Type | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
tool_exa_search.apikey | string | API Key Exa API key (from https://exa.ai) | "" |
tool_exa_search.includeText | boolean | Include Text Content Include full text content in results | true |
tool_exa_search.numResults | integer | Number of Results Maximum number of search results to return (1-50) | 10 |
tool_exa_search.searchType | string | Search Type Type of search to perform | "auto" |
tool_exa_search.useAutoprompt | boolean | Use Autoprompt Let Exa optimize the query for better results | true |
Dependencies
requests