mcpField
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people-research

people-research

github.com/exa-labsProductivity5.2k60 installsUpdated today
Repository

About people-research

A research skill for finding people through Exa and presenting names, roles, companies, locations, sources, and verification notes. It specifies search handling and a browser fallback for limited or gated results.

Key features

  1. 01People and profile discovery
  2. 02Search query variations
  3. 03Category-specific search guidance
  4. 04Browser fallback for gated pages
  5. 05Structured results and source notes

Use cases

  1. 01Finding professionals by role or field
  2. 02Researching an individual’s background
  3. 03Collecting public profile URLs and verification notes

Install

Copy the command and run it in a terminal.

$npx skills add https://github.com/exa-labs/exa-mcp-server --skill people-research

After installing, type/people-researchin Claude Code to confirm it loaded.

Details

From the project README

People 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 profiles 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:

  • people → LinkedIn profiles, public bios (primary for discovery)
  • personal site → personal blogs, portfolio sites, about pages
  • news → press mentions, interviews, speaker bios
  • No category (type: "auto") → general web results, broader context

Start with category: "people" for profile discovery, then use other categories or no category for deeper research on specific individuals.

Category-Specific Filter Restrictions

When using category: "people", these parameters cause errors:

  • startPublishedDate / endPublishedDate
  • startCrawlDate / endCrawlDate
  • includeText / excludeText
  • excludeDomains
  • includeDomains — LinkedIn domains only (e.g., "linkedin.com")

When searching without a category, all parameters are available (but includeText/excludeText still only support single-item arrays).

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 people by role
web_search_advanced_exa {
  "query": "VP Engineering AI infrastructure",
  "category": "people",
  "numResults": 20,
  "type": "auto"
}
With query variations
web_search_advanced_exa {
  "query": "machine learning engineer San Francisco",
  "category": "people",
  "additionalQueries": ["ML engineer SF", "AI engineer Bay Area"],
  "numResults": 25,
  "type": "deep"
}
Deep dive: research a specific person
web_search_advanced_exa {
  "query": "Dario Amodei Anthropic CEO background",
  "type": "auto",
  "numResults": 15
}
News mentions
web_search_advanced_exa {
  "query": "Dario Amodei interview",
  "category": "news",
  "numResults": 10,
  "startPublishedDate": "2024-01-01"
}

Output Format

Return:

  1. Results (name, title, company, location if available)
  2. Sources (Profile URLs)
  3. Notes (profile completeness, verification status)

Comments

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