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Exa Web Search and Extract

Search the web for scientific sources and batch-extract text from URLs and PDFs using Exa

Source Download skill
Repository
K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills
Stars
55,780
Licence
MIT
Files
5 files

What it does

Once installed, the agent can run web searches through the Exa search service, biased toward scholarly sources when you ask for research, and pull the readable text of up to 100 web pages or PDFs per call. It follows a routing guide that prefers peer-reviewed work, preprints, and institutional sources, and asks it to cite authors and years where available. The bundled Python scripts do the actual API calls and save results to JSON files.

Great for

  • Researchers who want a quick literature or technical web sweep with academic filters
  • Students gathering sources and extracting text from several article or PDF links at once
  • Developers who want an agent to batch-read URLs instead of fetching pages one by one

Skip it if

  • Checking facts or claims without verifying results, since search returns candidate sources that still need review for peer-review status and accuracy
  • Work where you cannot send queries or URLs to a third-party service, because search terms and extracted URLs go to Exa's API
  • Users without an Exa account or API key, since the skill cannot run without an EXA_API_KEY

Try asking

  • “Search recent publications on CRISPR off-target editing and summarise the main findings with citations”
  • “Extract the text of these three arXiv links and the Nature article into one JSON file”
  • “Find peer-reviewed papers on transformer architectures from the last two years, limited to arxiv.org and nature.com”
Step-by-step guide: how to use Exa Web Search and ExtractInstall, first run, examples, tips and FAQs

Install in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Download the skill

    The ZIP contains the 5 original files, the MIT licence and an attribution note.

    exa-search.zip
  2. 2

    Add it to your agent

    Claude Code (all projects)

    mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && unzip exa-search.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/

    Claude Code / Agent SDK (this project only)

    mkdir -p .claude/skills && unzip exa-search.zip -d .claude/skills/

    Claude apps (web/desktop): Settings → Capabilities → Skills → Upload skill, and choose the ZIP.

  3. 3

    Ask for the task

    No special command needed — the agent reads the skill's description and loads it when your request matches. Try one of the prompts above.

Get better results

  • Use --help first to confirm the scripts parse correctly; this does not need an API key.
  • Store EXA_API_KEY in a project .env file rather than pasting it into chats, and keep the key out of shared repositories.
  • Combine the publication category with a scholarly domain allowlist for narrower results, then check each source's peer-review status yourself.

What's inside

  • references/web-extract.md
  • references/web-search.md
  • scripts/exa_extract.py
  • scripts/exa_search.py
  • SKILL.md

Redistributed unmodified from K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills under the MIT licence. The assessment was drafted with AI from the skill's files on 2026-10-29. Skills can instruct your agent to run code — read SKILL.md and any scripts before installing.