How to integrate Exa MCP with Hermes

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Introduction

Hermes is a 24/7 autonomous agent that lives on your computer or server — it remembers what it learns and evolves as your usage grows.

This guide explains the easiest and most robust way to connect your Exa account to Hermes. You can do this through either Composio Connect CLI or Composio Connect MCP. For personal use we recommend the CLI, but you won't go wrong with MCP either.

Also integrate Exa with

What is Composio Connect?

Composio Connect is a consumer offering that lets anyone plug 1,000+ applications directly into their agent harness — including Hermes. It can:

  • Search and load tools from relevant toolkits on-demand, reducing context usage.
  • Chain multiple tools to accomplish complex workflows via a remote workbench, without excessive back-and-forth with the LLM.
  • Manage app authentication end-to-end with zero manual overhead.

Integrating Exa with Hermes

Using Composio Connect CLI

1. Install the Composio CLI

Run the install script directly, or paste https://composio.dev/hermes into your Hermes chat box to have it installed for you.

bash
curl -fsSL https://composio.dev/install | bash
Hermes authenticating with Composio

2. Authenticate

Once the CLI is installed, ask Hermes to authenticate with Composio.

3. Connect to Exa

Ask your agent to connect to Exa, or simply request any Exa-related task. Hermes will prompt you to authenticate and authorize access.

4. Done. You're all set with a new Exa connection.

Using Composio Connect MCP

1. Get your MCP URL and API Key

Go to dashboard.composio.dev and copy your Connect MCP URL and API key.

Copy MCP URL and API key from Composio dashboard

2. Open the Hermes config file

bash
nano ~/.hermes/config.yaml

3. Add the Composio Connect MCP server

bash
mcp_servers:
  composio:
    url: "https://connect.composio.dev/mcp"
    headers:
      x-consumer-api-key: "YOUR_COMPOSIO_API_KEY"
    connect_timeout: 60
    timeout: 180

Save with Ctrl + O, Enter, then exit with Ctrl + X.

4. Restart your Hermes agent

Once restarted, ask your agent to connect to Exa or request any Exa-related task. It will prompt you to authenticate and authorize access.

5. Done!

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 your Exa data platform, so your agent can perform actions like extracting answers from web data, running semantic searches, managing imports, and automating monitoring across your datasets.

  • Citation-backed question answering: Have your agent generate direct, source-cited answers or detailed summaries for your research questions using Exa’s advanced search.
  • Semantic similarity search: Quickly find web pages or documents that are semantically related to a given URL, complete with highlights or summaries for context.
  • Data import and webset management: Let your agent create, configure, or delete imports and websets to streamline data gathering and enrichment workflows.
  • Automated data monitoring: Schedule and manage monitors for websets to keep your data fresh and up-to-date with minimal manual intervention.
  • Event tracking and retrieval: Access a full history of system events or fetch details for specific events to stay on top of activity within your Exa environment.

Supported Tools & Triggers

Tools
Generate an answerGenerates a direct, citation-backed answer to a clear natural language question or topic using exa's search, adept at both specific answers and detailed summaries for open-ended queries.
Create ImportTool to create a new import to upload data into a webset.
Create a MonitorTool to create a new monitor.
Create WebsetTool to create a new webset with search, import, and enrichment setup.
Delete importTool to delete an existing import.
Delete websetTool to delete a webset.
Find similarFinds web pages semantically similar to a given url using embeddings-based search, optionally retrieving full text, highlights, or summaries for results.
Get contents from URLs or document IDsRetrieves configurable text and highlights from a list of exa document ids or publicly accessible urls.
Get EventTool to get details of a specific event by its id.
List eventsTool to list all events that have occurred in the system.
List importsTool to list all imports for the webset.
List webhooksTool to list all webhooks for websets.
SearchPerforms a web search using the exa engine, useful for queries requiring advanced filtering, specific content categories, or ai-optimized prompting.
Update importTool to update an import configuration by id.

Way Forward

With Exa connected, Hermes can now act on your behalf whenever it detects a relevant task or you ask it to.

From here, you can extend Hermes further:

  • Connect more apps: Calendar, Slack, Notion, Linear, and hundreds of others are available through the same Composio Connect setup. Each new integration compounds what Hermes can do for you.
  • Build workflows across tools: Once multiple apps are connected, Hermes can chain actions together — turn an email into a calendar invite, a Slack message into a Linear ticket, or a meeting note into a follow-up draft.
  • Let it learn your patterns: The more you use Hermes, the better it gets at anticipating how you'd handle recurring tasks. Give it feedback on drafts and decisions, and it will adapt.

If you run into trouble or want to share what you've built, join the community or check out the Docs for deeper configuration options.

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FAQ

What are the differences in Tool Router MCP and Exa MCP?

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.

Can I use Tool Router MCP with Hermes?

Yes, you can. Hermes 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.

Can I manage the permissions and scopes for Exa while using Tool Router?

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.

How safe is my data with Composio Tool Router?

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.

Used by agents from

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