Exa Block

The Exa block lets you search the web, retrieve page content, find similar links, get cited answers, and conduct deep research using Exa's AI-powered search. Reach for it whenever you need high-quality, grounded web results to feed into the rest of your workflow.

Overview

When to Use

• Run AI-powered web searches and return ranked, scored results for a query.
• Retrieve and optionally summarize the full text content of specific URLs.
• Discover pages that are semantically similar to a known reference URL.
• Get a direct, citation-backed answer to a natural-language question.
• Conduct multi-step, comprehensive research on a topic and receive structured findings.
• Pull live web data into an agent pipeline without building a custom search integration.

Configuration

Operation

Selects what the block does. Every other input is conditional on this choice.

Search Query — query

Shown when operation = exa_search, exa_answer, or exa_research. Required for all three.

• For Search: the web search query to execute.
• For Answer: the natural-language question to answer.
• For Research: the research topic or question to investigate.

Number of Results — numResults

Shown when operation = exa_search or exa_find_similar_links. Optional.

How many results to return (default: 10, max: 25). Accepts a plain integer.

Use Autoprompt — useAutoprompt

Shown when operation = exa_search. Optional (switch).

When enabled, Exa rewrites and improves the query before executing the search.

Search Type — type

Shown when operation = exa_search. Optional.

Controls the retrieval strategy used by Exa.

Default is auto.

URLs — urls

Shown when operation = exa_get_contents. Required.

A comma-separated list of URLs whose content you want to retrieve (e.g. https://example.com, https://other.com).

Include Text — text

Shown when operation = exa_get_contents, exa_find_similar_links, or exa_answer. Optional (switch).

• For Get Contents: when enabled, returns the full page text alongside the summary.
• For Find Similar Links: when enabled, includes the full text of each similar page in the results.
• For Answer: when enabled, includes the full text of the answer alongside the generated response.

Summary Query — summaryQuery

Shown when operation = exa_get_contents. Optional.

A query string that guides how Exa summarizes each retrieved page. Leave blank to use default summarization.

URL — url

Shown when operation = exa_find_similar_links. Required.

The single reference URL for which Exa should find semantically similar pages.

Include Full Text — includeText

Shown when operation = exa_research. Optional (switch).

When enabled, each research result includes the full source text in addition to the summary.

API Key — apiKey

Required for all operations. Stored as a password (secret).

Your Exa AI API key. Store it as a workflow secret and reference it with {{EXA_API_KEY}}.

Inputs & Outputs

Inputs (all input ids used by the block):

• operation (string) — Operation to perform; one of the five operation ids above.
• apiKey (string) — Exa API key, required for every operation.
• query (string) — Search query terms; used by exa_search, exa_answer, and exa_research.
• numResults (number) — Number of results to return; used by exa_search and exa_find_similar_links.
• useAutoprompt (boolean) — Use autoprompt feature; used by exa_search.
• type (string) — Search type (auto / neural / keyword / fast); used by exa_search.
• urls (string) — Comma-separated URLs to retrieve; used by exa_get_contents.
• text (boolean) — Include text content; used by exa_get_contents, exa_find_similar_links, and exa_answer.
• summaryQuery (string) — Summary query guidance; used by exa_get_contents.
• url (string) — Source URL to find similar pages for; used by exa_find_similar_links.

Outputs (what downstream blocks can reference):

• results (json) — Array of search results (title, url, publishedDate, author, summary, favicon, image, text, score); produced by exa_search and exa_get_contents.
• similarLinks (json) — Array of similar pages (title, url, text, score); produced by exa_find_similar_links.
• answer (string) — AI-generated answer to the question; produced by exa_answer.
• citations (json) — Array of cited sources (title, url, text); produced by exa_answer.
• research (json) — Array of structured research findings (title, url, summary, text, publishedDate, author, score); produced by exa_research.

Tools

• Exa Search (exa_search) — Calls POST https://api.exa.ai/search. Accepts a query and optional numResults, useAutoprompt, and type parameters. Returns an array of scored results with titles, URLs, text snippets, and metadata.
• Exa Get Contents (exa_get_contents) — Calls POST https://api.exa.ai/contents. Accepts comma-separated URLs and optional text/summaryQuery parameters. Returns page title, full text, and AI-generated summary per URL.
• Exa Find Similar Links (exa_find_similar_links) — Calls POST https://api.exa.ai/findSimilar. Accepts a reference URL and optional numResults and text flags. Returns a scored list of semantically similar pages.
• Exa Answer (exa_answer) — Calls POST https://api.exa.ai/answer. Accepts a natural-language question and optional text flag. Returns a synthesized answer string and a citations array.
• Exa Research (exa_research) — Calls POST https://api.exa.ai/research/v0/tasks and polls until complete (up to 5 minutes). Submits a research query and returns a structured array of findings with titles, URLs, summaries, and optional full text.

YAML Example

exa_1:
  type: exa
  name: "Exa"
  inputs:
    operation: "exa_search"
    query: "{{start.input}}"
    numResults: 10
    type: "auto"
    useAutoprompt: true
    apiKey: "{{EXA_API_KEY}}"
  connections:
    outgoing:
      - target: next-block-id