web_search and web_extract tools. Use Exa for both capabilities, or pair it with another Hermes web provider.
Connect your Exa account
1
Get an Exa API key
Get your Exa API key
Create a key in the dashboard. New accounts start with free credits.
2
Select Exa in Hermes
Run the tool setup wizard:Open Web Search & Extract, choose Exa, and select the API-key-backed option. When prompted, enter your Exa API key. Hermes stores secrets in
~/.hermes/.env and provider selection in ~/.hermes/config.yaml.3
Test web access
Start Hermes and ask it to search, then read one of the results:Hermes should call
web_search, followed by web_extract when it needs the page itself.Configure manually
Add your key to the Hermes environment file:~/.hermes/.env
~/.hermes/config.yaml
~/.hermes/config.yaml
web.backend. This lets you use Exa only for search or only for extraction when combining providers.
Tools Hermes gets
Hermes truncates long extracted pages to its configured character budget and stores the complete text on disk. Change the default with
web.extract_char_limit, or let the agent request a larger char_limit for an individual call.
Hermes can use Exa through its keyless free-provider pool without an API key. That pool is rate-limited and may rotate among providers. Configure
EXA_API_KEY and select the API-key-backed Exa option when you need requests to use your Exa account consistently.Troubleshooting
Hermes does not select Exa
Hermes does not select Exa
Run
hermes tools and explicitly select Exa. If you configure files manually, check that web.search_backend, web.extract_backend, or web.backend is set to exa.Hermes reports that EXA_API_KEY is missing
Hermes reports that EXA_API_KEY is missing
Add the key to
~/.hermes/.env, then restart Hermes so it reloads the environment.Search works but extraction uses another provider
Search works but extraction uses another provider
Hermes can configure search and extraction independently. Set both
web.search_backend and web.extract_backend to exa.Resources
Hermes web tools
Review Hermes provider selection, caching, and extraction behavior.
Exa Search
Learn how Exa searches, filters, and returns page contents.
Exa Contents
Understand the extraction API behind
web_extract.