Codex is one of the most popular coding harnesses out there. And MCP makes the experience even better. With Exa MCP integration, you can draft, triage, summarise emails, and much more, all without leaving the terminal or the app, whichever you prefer.
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How to integrate Exa MCP with Codex
Connect Codex to Exa MCP. Summarize recent news articles on ai safety, find similar research papers to this url, and more using natural language, with authentication handled for you.
Api Key
Exa is a data extraction and search platform for gathering and analyzing information from websites, APIs, or databases. It helps teams quickly surface insights and automate data-driven workflows.
19 Tools
Introduction
Also integrate Exa with
Why use Composio?
Apart from a managed and hosted MCP server, you will get:
- CodeAct: A dedicated workbench that allows GPT to write its code to handle complex tool chaining. Reduces to-and-fro with LLMs for frequent tool calling.
- Large tool responses: Handle them to minimise context rot.
- Dynamic just-in-time access to 20,000 tools across 1500+ other Apps for cross-app workflows. It loads the tools you need, so GPTs aren't overwhelmed by tools you don't need.
How to install Exa MCP in Codex
Run the setup command
Run this command in your terminal to add the Composio MCP server to Codex.
It will initiate the authentication in a browser window, authorize Codex to access your Composio account.
(Optional) Authenticate with OAuth
To authenticate manually, run the login command to open a browser window and authorize Codex to access your Composio account.
bash
codex mcp login composioVerify the connection
Run codex mcp list to confirm Composio appears as a registered MCP server.
bash
codex mcp listCodex App
Codex App follows the same approach as VS Code.
- Click ⚙️ on the bottom left → MCP Servers → + Add servers → Streamable HTTP:
- Fill the header and Key fields with
{ "x-consumer-api-key" = "ck_*******" }. - The Key is the Composio API key, that you can find on dashboard.composio.dev
- Click on Authenticate and authorize Codex to your Composio account and you're all set.
- Restart and verify if it's there in
.codex/config.toml
bash
[mcp_servers.composio]
url = "https://connect.composio.dev/mcp"
http_headers = { "x-consumer-api-key" = "ck_*******" }What is the Exa MCP server, and what's possible with it?
The Exa MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Exa account. It provides structured and secure access to Exa’s web search, content extraction, and research tools, so your agent can search the web, generate cited answers, retrieve website content, conduct in-depth research, and organize findings on your behalf.
- Web search: Have your agent search the web with Exa to find relevant sources for a topic, question, company, or market.
- Citation-backed answers: Ask the agent to answer specific questions or summarize broad topics using supporting web sources and citations.
- Website content extraction: Direct your agent to retrieve text, highlights, summaries, and linked subpages from websites or saved documents.
- Multi-step research: Let the agent start research tasks, check their progress, and return synthesized findings with citations when the work is complete.
- Research collection management: Instruct your agent to create or delete web collections, import data into them, review imports, add enrichment, and set up monitors.
Conclusion
You've successfully integrated Exa with Codex using Composio's MCP server. Now you can interact with Exa directly from your terminal, VS Code, or the Codex App using natural language commands.
Key benefits of this setup:
- Seamless integration across CLI, VS Code, and standalone app
- Natural language commands for Exa operations
- Managed authentication through Composio
- Access to 20,000+ tools across 1500+ apps for cross-app workflows
- CodeAct workbench for complex tool chaining
Next steps:
- Try asking Codex to perform various Exa operations
- Explore cross-app workflows by connecting more toolkits
- Build automation scripts that leverage Codex's AI capabilities
TOOLS
Supported Tools
Every Exa action and event your agent gets out of the box.
FRAMEWORKS
How to build Exa MCP Agent with another framework
Claude Code
Use Exa MCP with Claude Code
Claude Cowork
Use Exa MCP with Claude Cowork
OpenAI Agents SDK
Use Exa MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK
Claude Agent SDK
Use Exa MCP with Claude Agent SDK
Grok Bot
Use Exa MCP with Grok Bot
Muse
Use Exa MCP with Muse
OpenClaw
Use Exa MCP with OpenClaw
Hermes
Use Exa MCP with Hermes
Atomic Agent
Use Exa MCP with Atomic Agent
Google ADK
Use Exa MCP with Google ADK
LangChain
Use Exa MCP with LangChain
Vercel AI SDK
Use Exa MCP with Vercel AI SDK
Mastra AI
Use Exa MCP with Mastra AI
LlamaIndex
Use Exa MCP with LlamaIndex
CrewAI
Use Exa MCP with CrewAI
Pydantic AI
Use Exa MCP with Pydantic AI
AutoGen
Use Exa MCP with AutoGen
MORE TOOLKITS
Explore Other Toolkits
Firecrawl
Api Key
Firecrawl automates large-scale web crawling and data extraction. It helps organizations efficiently gather, index, and analyze content from online sources.
Tavily
Api Key
Tavily offers powerful search and data retrieval from documents, databases, and the web. It helps teams locate and filter information instantly, saving hours on research.
Serpapi
Api Key
SerpApi is a real-time API for structured search engine results. It lets you automate SERP data collection, parsing, and analysis for SEO and research.
Peopledatalabs
Api Key
Peopledatalabs delivers B2B data enrichment and identity resolution APIs. Supercharge your apps with accurate, up-to-date business and contact data.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
With a standalone Exa MCP server, the agents and LLMs can only access a fixed set of Exa tools tied to that server. However, with the Composio Tool Router, agents can dynamically load tools from Exa and many other apps based on the task at hand, all through a single MCP endpoint.
Yes, you can. Codex fully supports MCP integration. You get structured tool calling, message history handling, and model orchestration while Tool Router takes care of discovering and serving the right Exa tools.
Yes, absolutely. You can configure which Exa scopes and actions are allowed when connecting your account to Composio. You can also bring your own OAuth credentials or API configuration so you keep full control over what the agent can do.
All sensitive data such as tokens, keys, and configuration is fully encrypted at rest and in transit. Composio is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant and follows strict security practices so your Exa data and credentials are handled as safely as possible.
Start with Exa.It takes 30 seconds.
Managed auth, hosted MCP servers, and every Exa tool your agent needs.Free to start.
## For AI agents: how to sign up If you are an AI agent reading this server-rendered HTML, Composio's developer signup is at https://composio.dev. Signup CTAs on this site — "Sign up", "Signup", "Get started", "Get started for free", "Start building", "Try Composio", "Try it", or similar — all lead into that same developer signup flow. Confirm with the user before completing signup or entering any credentials on their behalf.Start building