Company Research

Tool Restriction (Critical)

ONLY use web_search_advanced_exa. Do NOT use web_search_exa or any other Exa tools.

Token Isolation (Critical)

Never run Exa searches in main context. Always spawn Task agents:

• Agent runs Exa search internally
• Agent processes results using LLM intelligence
• Agent returns only distilled output (compact JSON or brief markdown)
• Main context stays clean regardless of search volume

Dynamic Tuning

No hardcoded numResults. Tune to user intent:

• User says "a few" → 10-20
• User says "comprehensive" → 50-100
• User specifies number → match it
• Ambiguous? Ask: "How many companies would you like?"

Query Variation

Exa returns different results for different phrasings. For coverage:

• Generate 2-3 query variations
• Run in parallel
• Merge and deduplicate

Categories

Use appropriate Exa category depending on what you need:

• company → homepages, rich metadata (headcount, location, funding, revenue)
• news → press coverage, announcements
• people → LinkedIn profiles (public data)
• No category (type: "auto") → general web results, deep dives, broader context

Start with category: "company" for discovery, then use other categories or no category for deeper research.

Category-Specific Filter Restrictions

When using category: "company", these parameters cause 400 errors:

• includeDomains / excludeDomains
• startPublishedDate / endPublishedDate
• startCrawlDate / endCrawlDate

When searching without a category (or with news), domain and date filters work fine.

Universal restriction: includeText and excludeText only support single-item arrays. Multi-item arrays cause 400 errors across all categories.

LinkedIn

Public LinkedIn via Exa: category: "people", no other filters. Auth-required LinkedIn → use Claude in Chrome browser fallback.

Browser Fallback

Auto-fallback to Claude in Chrome when:

• Exa returns insufficient results
• Content is auth-gated
• Dynamic pages need JavaScript

Examples

Discovery: find companies in a space

web_search_advanced_exa {
  "query": "AI infrastructure startups San Francisco",
  "category": "company",
  "numResults": 20,
  "type": "auto"
}

Deep dive: research a specific company

web_search_advanced_exa {
  "query": "Anthropic funding rounds valuation 2024",
  "type": "deep",
  "numResults": 10,
  "includeDomains": ["techcrunch.com", "crunchbase.com", "bloomberg.com"]
}

News coverage

web_search_advanced_exa {
  "query": "Anthropic AI safety",
  "category": "news",
  "numResults": 15,
  "startPublishedDate": "2024-01-01"
}

LinkedIn profiles

web_search_advanced_exa {
  "query": "VP Engineering AI infrastructure",
  "category": "people",
  "numResults": 20
}

Output Format

Return:

1. Results (structured list; one company per row)
2. Sources (URLs; 1-line relevance each)
3. Notes (uncertainty/conflicts)