Agent skill · software engineering · jeremylongshore
exa-architecture-variants
Choose among direct Search, staged Contents, Answer, Agent, Monitors, Websets, and Batch using explicit latency, verification, volume, and lifecycle criteria. Use when operating or reviewing this Exa boundary. Trigger with "Exa architecture variants", "review Exa architecture variants", or "fix Exa architecture variants".
Why this skill is useful
Adds three executable scripts for Exa architecture patterns that aren't in public documentation.
What it needs
Requires exa-js, lru-cache installed locally. Requires exa account access. About 3k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-08-07. 2,604 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
Exa Product Architecture Selection Overview Choose among direct Search, staged Contents, Answer, Agent, Monitors, Websets, and Batch using explicit latency, verification, volume, and lifecycle criteria. Treat credentials, queries, retrieved content, generated output, spend, and destructive state as separately governed boundaries. Prerequisites The target repository, environment, Exa team, product surface, and accountable owner. The workload's data classification, latency and freshness promise, cost ceiling, and retention policy. Current first-party documentation plus credentials only for a narrowly approved live check. Current Contract The Exa products are complementary rather than drop-in tiers. Search and Contents suit bounded synchronous retrieval; Answer synthesizes a cited response; Agent performs asynchronous multi-step research; Monitors recur and notify; Websets verify and enrich sets; enabled Batch handles offline Search or Agent volume. Authentication For normal REST work, inject EXAAPIKEY from an approved server-side secret manager and send it only as Authorization: Bearer to the configured first-party Exa API host. Team Management service keys, hosted MCP OAuth or enterprise managed authorization, and payment-protocol calls are separate trust models. Never print, commit, place in a URL, or expose a credential to an untrusted client. Instructions 1. State the output, verification need, cadence, latency, volume, and cost ceiling. 2. Select the narrowest product and document why simpler options fail. 3. Model synchronous and asynchronous state, callbacks, polling, and terminal outcomes. 4. Place credentials, policy, content inspection, and citations at explicit boundaries. 5. Prototype with synthetic inputs and measure quality, latency, and cost. 6. Record the chosen variant, rejected alternatives, migration triggers, and rollback. Tool Discipline Use Read, Glob, and Grep to inspect repository code, configuration, fixtures, and evidence. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills jeremylongshore/exa-architecture-variants