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Exa’s Search API returns a list of webpages and their contents based on a natural language search query. Results are optimized for LLM consumption, enabling higher-quality completions with clean, token efficent data.

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Key Benefits

  • Token efficient: Use highlights to get key excerpts relevant to your query, reducing token usage by 10x compared to full text, without adding latency.
  • Specialized index coverage: State of the art search performance on people, company, and code using Exa’s in-house search indexes.
  • Incredible speed: From auto for highest quality to instant for sub-200ms latency, Exa provides the fastest search available without compromising on quality—enabling real-time workflows like autocomplete and live suggestions.

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Request Fields

The query parameter is required for all search requests. The remaining fields are optional. See the API Reference for complete parameter details.
FieldTypeNotesExample
querystringThe search query. Supports long, semantically rich descriptions for finding niche content.”blog post about embeddings and vector search”
typestringSearch method: auto (highest quality), instant (lowest latency), deep (comprehensive).“auto”
numResultsintNumber of results to return (1-100). Defaults to 10.10
highlightsbool/objReturn token-efficient excerpts most relevant to your query. You can also request full text if needed—see the API Reference.{ "maxCharacters": 2000 }
maxAgeHoursintMaximum age of indexed content in hours. If older, fetches with livecrawl. 0 = always livecrawl, -1 = never livecrawl (cache only).24
categorystringTarget specific content types: company, people, tweet, news”company”

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Search Types

The type parameter selects the search method:
  • auto (default): Exa’s highest quality search. Intelligently combines neural and other search methods.
  • instant: Lowest latency search optimized for real-time applications like autocomplete or live suggestions.
  • deep: Comprehensive search with automatic query expansion and detailed context. Best for research tasks requiring thorough coverage.

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Token Efficiency

Choosing the right content mode can significantly reduce token usage while maintaining answer quality.
ModeBest For
textDeep analysis, when you need full context, comprehensive research
highlightsFactual questions, specific lookups, multi-step agent workflows
summaryQuick overviews, structured extraction, when you control the output size
Use highlights for agentic workflows: When building multi-step agents that make repeated search calls, highlights provide the most relevant excerpts without flooding context windows. 
{
  "query": "What is the current Fed interest rate?",
  "contents": {
    "highlights": { "maxCharacters": 2000 }
  },
  // Real-time info requires livecrawl; this may increase latency
  "maxAgeHours": 0
}
Use full text for deep research: When the task requires comprehensive understanding or when you’re unsure which parts of the page matter, request full text. Use maxCharacters to cap token usage. 
{
  "query": "detailed analysis of transformer architecture innovations",
  "contents": {
    "text": { "maxCharacters": 15000 }
  },
  "numResults": 5
}
Combine modes strategically: You can request both highlights and text together—use highlights for quick answers and fall back to full text only when needed.

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Verbosity Settings

When using text, control how much content is returned with the verbosity parameter:
Content TypeCompactStandardFull
Main body text✓✓✓
Image placeholders (![], ![alt])✓✓
Infobox/metadata tables✓✓
Navigation menus✓✓
Footer content✓
Legal/copyright notices✓
Site-wide links (About, Privacy, etc.)✓

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Content Freshness

Control whether results come from Exa’s index or are freshly crawled using maxAgeHours:
  • maxAgeHours: 24: Use cache if less than 24 hours old, otherwise livecrawl. Good for daily-fresh content.
  • maxAgeHours: 1: Use cache if less than 1 hour old. Good for near real-time data.
  • maxAgeHours: 0: Always livecrawl (ignore cache). Use when cached data is unacceptable.
  • maxAgeHours: -1: Never livecrawl (cache only). Maximum speed, historical/static content.
  • Omit (recommended): Default behavior — livecrawl as fallback if no cache exists.
{
  "query": "latest announcements from OpenAI",
  "includeDomains": ["openai.com"],
  "contents": {
    "maxAgeHours": 72,
    "text": true
  }
}

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Category Filters

Use category to target specific content types where Exa has specialized coverage:
CategoryBest For
companyCompany pages, LinkedIn company profiles
peopleMulti-source data on people, LinkedIn profiles
research paperAcademic papers, arXiv, peer-reviewed research
newsCurrent events, journalism
tweetPosts from X/Twitter
personal siteBlogs, personal pages (Exa’s unique strength)
financial reportSEC filings, earnings reports
{
  "query": "agtech companies in the US that have raised series A",
  "type": "auto",
  "category": "company",
  "numResults": 10,
  "contents": {
    "text": true
  }
}