n8n-nodes-exa-official

This is an n8n community node that provides integration with the Exa API for intelligent web search, async research, and content extraction.

Exa is an AI-powered search engine that provides embeddings-based semantic search, deep web research, and structured content extraction.

n8n is a fair-code licensed workflow automation platform.

Installation
Operations
Credentials
Compatibility
Usage
Resources

Installation

Follow the installation guide in the n8n community nodes documentation.

Operations

This node supports the following Exa API operations:

Search

• Search: Intelligently search the web with neural or keyword-based search
  • Supports multiple search types: auto, neural, keyword, fast
  • Filter by domain, date, category, and text content
  • Extract page contents (text, highlights, summaries)
  • Configure livecrawl and subpage crawling

Contents

• Get Contents: Retrieve cleaned text, highlights, and summaries from a list of URLs

Find Similar

• Find Similar Links: Discover pages similar to a given URL

Answer

• Get Answer: Get an AI-generated answer to a query using Exa's research capabilities

Research

• Create Research Task: Launch a long-running research job powered by Exa Research or Research Pro
• Get Research Task: Poll a specific research task for status, findings, and generated artifacts
• List Research Tasks: Fetch paginated task history for monitoring and auditing

Credentials

To use this node, you need an Exa API key. You can obtain one by:

1. Signing up at dashboard.exa.ai
2. Navigating to the API Keys section
3. Creating a new API key

Add the API key to your n8n credentials as "Exa API".

Compatibility

• Minimum n8n version: 1.0.0
• Tested against n8n version: 1.60.0

Usage

Basic Search Example

1. Add the Exa node to your workflow
2. Select "Search" as the resource
3. Enter your search query (e.g., "Latest AI research papers")
4. Configure search type (auto, neural, keyword, or fast)
5. Optionally add filters:
   • Category (research paper, news, company, etc.)
   • Date range (published date)
   • Domain filters (include/exclude specific domains)
   • Text filters (include/exclude specific text)

Content Extraction

Enable content extraction options:

• Text: Get cleaned page text
• Highlights: Get relevant excerpts
• Summary: Get AI-generated summaries
• Livecrawl: Crawl pages in real-time
• Subpages: Crawl linked subpages

Advanced Features

Date Filtering: Filter results by publication date

Start Published Date: 2024-01-01
End Published Date: 2024-12-31

Domain Control: Focus on or exclude specific domains

Include Domains: arxiv.org, github.com
Exclude Domains: reddit.com

Category Filtering: Focus on specific content types

• Company profiles
• Research papers
• News articles
• PDFs
• GitHub repositories
• Twitter/LinkedIn profiles
• Financial reports

Research Workflow Example

1. Add an Exa node and set Resource to Research with the Create Research Task operation.
2. Provide a clear research instruction (for example, "Compare emerging open-source RAG frameworks and summarize trade-offs").
3. Choose the Research product tier (exa-research or exa-research-pro) and optional guardrails like domain/category allowlists.
4. Store the returned id or use paired nodes (Set/Code) to persist it inside the workflow.
5. Add another Exa node in the same workflow set to Get Research Task and reference the saved id to poll results until the status becomes completed.
6. Inspect the response for insights, sources, outline, or generated assets, then continue your workflow (e.g., send a Slack summary or populate a database).

For bulk monitoring, use List Research Tasks and apply parameters for pagination, status filtering, or creation date ranges.

Resources

• n8n community nodes documentation
• Exa API documentation
• Exa API reference

Development

To work on this node locally:

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build the node
npm run build

# Link for local testing
npm link

# In your n8n installation directory
cd ~/.n8n/custom
npm link n8n-nodes-exa-official

# Start n8n
n8n start

License

MIT