OpenHuman

OpenHuman by TinyHumans is a desktop AI assistant with a native web search tool the agent calls on its own. Exa is the search provider behind that tool.

Approach	Setup	Runs on
OpenHuman Managed	None	OpenHuman’s backend, powered by Exa. No API key.
Exa provider	Paste an Exa API key	Your machine, straight to `https://api.exa.ai` on your own Exa account.

OpenHuman Managed

Managed search is the default. Choose Simple during onboarding and the agent can search the web immediately.

OpenHuman onboarding asking how to run OpenHuman, with the Simple option selected — Choose Simple during onboarding for Exa-powered managed search

Managed is the fastest way to get Exa results. No key to create, store, or rotate, no credentials on your machine, and search is billed on your OpenHuman subscription.

Exa provider

Configure Exa directly to run search on your own Exa account and give the agent Exa’s search and page-contents tools.

Get your Exa API key

Add Exa in OpenHuman

Open Connections, then select Search engine under API keys.

The OpenHuman Connections page with Search engine selected under API keys, showing the search engine list with OpenHuman Managed active — Connections → API keys → Search engine

Select Exa.

The Exa engine option selected in the OpenHuman Search engine panel, showing the Needs API key badge — Exa selected, waiting on a key

Paste your key into Exa API key and select Save.

The Exa API key field in OpenHuman with a key entered and the Save button visible — Save the Exa API key

The OpenHuman Search engine panel with Exa selected and marked Configured — Exa configured as the active search engine

Configuration

The panel writes to OpenHuman’s config.toml. Set the same values in the file or the environment instead:

config.toml
Environment

config.toml

[search]
engine = "exa"        # required
max_results = 5       # optional, 1-20
timeout_secs = 15     # optional

[search.exa]
api_key = "your-exa-api-key"   # required

OPENHUMAN_SEARCH_ENGINE=exa
EXA_API_KEY=your-exa-api-key

EXA_API_KEY and OPENHUMAN_EXA_API_KEY both override search.exa.api_key. When both are set, OPENHUMAN_EXA_API_KEY takes precedence.

Tools the agent gets

Tool	Returns
`web_search_tool`	Web search, served by Exa.
`exa_search`	Ranked pages with titles, URLs, publish dates, and optional text.
`exa_get_contents`	Full contents of given URLs, with optional summaries or highlights.

The agent sets Exa’s search parameters per call, so plain instructions are enough to steer search mode, domains, dates, and categories.

Troubleshooting

Exa search unavailable: no API key configured

OpenHuman found no key in the Search engine panel, the EXA_API_KEY and OPENHUMAN_EXA_API_KEY variables, or search.exa.api_key. Set it in one of them, and restart OpenHuman if you edited config.toml while it was running.

Exa rejected the configured API key (HTTP 401)

The key is invalid or revoked. Check it in the Exa dashboard, then Clear the stored key and save the correct one. Watch for pasted whitespace.

Exa returned non-2xx status

429 means a rate limit or exhausted quota: check usage in the dashboard. For 5xx, retry, then see error codes.

OpenHuman Managed is missing from the engine list

Local-only sessions cannot use managed search. Configure the Exa provider with your own key.

Resources

OpenHuman web search docs

Read OpenHuman’s own reference for its search engines.

Exa search API

Understand the search modes, filters, and content options behind the Exa tools.

Search best practices

Get better results out of every query.

API

Data

MCP

SDKs

Integrations

Agentic payments

Admin

Additional Resources

OpenHuman

OpenHuman Managed