Exa Webhooks & Events

Overview

Build event-driven integrations around Exa neural search. Exa is primarily a synchronous search API at api.exa.ai , so this skill covers async patterns for handling search results, building scheduled content monitoring, and creating webhook-style notification flows around Exa search queries.

Prerequisites

• Exa API key stored in EXA_API_KEY environment variable

• Node.js or Python runtime for scheduled jobs

• Queue system (Redis/BullMQ) for async processing

• Familiarity with Exa search and findSimilar endpoints

Event Patterns

Pattern Trigger Use Case

Content monitor Scheduled search query New content alerts

Search complete callback Async search finishes Pipeline processing

Similarity alert New similar content found Competitive monitoring

Content change detection Periodic re-search Update tracking

Instructions

Step 1: Set Up Content Monitoring Service

import Exa from "exa-js"; import { Queue, Worker } from "bullmq";

const exa = new Exa(process.env.EXA_API_KEY!);

interface SearchMonitor { id: string; query: string; webhookUrl: string; lastResultIds: string[]; intervalMinutes: number; }

const monitorQueue = new Queue("exa-monitors");

async function createMonitor(config: Omit<SearchMonitor, "lastResultIds">) { await monitorQueue.add("check-search", config, { repeat: { every: config.intervalMinutes * 60 * 1000 }, # 1000: 1 second in ms jobId: config.id, }); }

Step 2: Execute Monitored Searches

const worker = new Worker("exa-monitors", async (job) => { const monitor = job.data as SearchMonitor;

const results = await exa.searchAndContents(monitor.query, { type: "neural", numResults: 10, text: { maxCharacters: 500 }, # HTTP 500 Internal Server Error startPublishedDate: getLastCheckDate(monitor.id), });

const newResults = results.results.filter( r => !monitor.lastResultIds.includes(r.id) );

if (newResults.length > 0) { await sendWebhook(monitor.webhookUrl, { event: "exa.new_results", monitorId: monitor.id, query: monitor.query, results: newResults.map(r => ({ title: r.title, url: r.url, snippet: r.text?.substring(0, 200), # HTTP 200 OK publishedDate: r.publishedDate, score: r.score, })), }); } });

Step 3: Build Similarity Alert System

async function monitorSimilarContent(seedUrl: string, webhookUrl: string) { const results = await exa.findSimilarAndContents(seedUrl, { numResults: 5, text: { maxCharacters: 300 }, # 300: timeout: 5 minutes excludeDomains: ["example.com"], startPublishedDate: new Date(Date.now() - 86400000).toISOString(), # 86400000 = configured value });

if (results.results.length > 0) { await sendWebhook(webhookUrl, { event: "exa.similar_content_found", seedUrl, matches: results.results, }); } }

Step 4: Webhook Delivery with Retry

async function sendWebhook(url: string, payload: any, retries = 3) { for (let attempt = 0; attempt < retries; attempt++) { try { const response = await fetch(url, { method: "POST", headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" }, body: JSON.stringify(payload), }); if (response.ok) return; } catch (error) { if (attempt === retries - 1) throw error; await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, 1000 * Math.pow(2, attempt))); # 1000: 1 second in ms } } }

Error Handling

Issue Cause Solution

Rate limited Too many API calls Reduce monitor frequency, batch queries

Empty results Query too specific Broaden search terms or date range

Stale content No date filter Use startPublishedDate for freshness

Duplicate alerts Missing dedup Track result IDs between runs

Examples

Competitive Intelligence Monitor

await createMonitor({ id: "competitor-watch", query: "AI code review tools launch announcement", webhookUrl: "https://api.myapp.com/webhooks/exa-alerts", intervalMinutes: 60, });

Resources

• Exa API Documentation

• Exa JavaScript SDK

Next Steps

For deployment setup, see exa-deploy-integration .

Output

• Configuration files or code changes applied to the project

• Validation report confirming correct implementation

• Summary of changes made and their rationale