Exa Security Basics

Overview

Security best practices for Exa API integrations. Exa authenticates via the x-api-key header. Key security concerns include API key protection, content moderation for search results, domain filtering to prevent exposure to malicious sources, and query sanitization.

Prerequisites

• Exa API key from dashboard.exa.ai
• Understanding of environment variable management
• .gitignore configured for secrets

Instructions

Step 1: API Key Management

# .env (NEVER commit to git)
EXA_API_KEY=your-api-key-here

# .gitignore — add these entries
.env
.env.local
.env.*.local

// Validate API key exists before creating client
import Exa from "exa-js";

function createSecureClient(): Exa {
  const apiKey = process.env.EXA_API_KEY;
  if (!apiKey) {
    throw new Error("EXA_API_KEY not configured");
  }
  if (apiKey.startsWith("sk_") && apiKey.length < 20) {
    throw new Error("EXA_API_KEY appears malformed");
  }
  return new Exa(apiKey);
}

Step 2: Enable Content Moderation

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

// Exa supports content moderation to filter unsafe results
const results = await exa.searchAndContents(
  "user-provided search query",
  {
    numResults: 10,
    text: true,
    moderation: true,  // filter unsafe content from results
  }
);

Step 3: Domain Filtering for Safety

// Restrict results to trusted domains for sensitive use cases
const TRUSTED_DOMAINS = [
  "docs.python.org", "developer.mozilla.org", "nodejs.org",
  "github.com", "stackoverflow.com", "arxiv.org",
];

const BLOCKED_DOMAINS = [
  "known-malware-site.com", "phishing-domain.net",
];

async function safeDomainSearch(query: string) {
  return exa.searchAndContents(query, {
    numResults: 10,
    includeDomains: TRUSTED_DOMAINS,  // only return results from these
    text: { maxCharacters: 1000 },
  });
}

async function searchWithBlocklist(query: string) {
  return exa.searchAndContents(query, {
    numResults: 10,
    excludeDomains: BLOCKED_DOMAINS,  // never return results from these
    text: { maxCharacters: 1000 },
  });
}

Step 4: Query Sanitization

// Sanitize user-provided queries before sending to Exa
function sanitizeQuery(input: string): string {
  // Remove potential injection patterns
  let clean = input
    .replace(/[<>{}]/g, "")           // strip HTML/template chars
    .replace(/\0/g, "")              // remove null bytes
    .trim()
    .substring(0, 500);              // cap query length

  if (!clean || clean.length < 2) {
    throw new Error("Query too short or empty after sanitization");
  }
  return clean;
}

// Usage
const userQuery = sanitizeQuery(req.body.query);
const results = await exa.search(userQuery, {
  numResults: 10,
  moderation: true,
});

Step 5: Per-Environment Key Isolation

// Use separate API keys per environment
const KEY_MAP: Record<string, string> = {
  development: process.env.EXA_API_KEY_DEV!,
  staging: process.env.EXA_API_KEY_STAGING!,
  production: process.env.EXA_API_KEY_PROD!,
};

function getExaForEnv(): Exa {
  const env = process.env.NODE_ENV || "development";
  const key = KEY_MAP[env];
  if (!key) throw new Error(`No EXA key for ${env}`);
  return new Exa(key);
}

Security Checklist

• API key stored in environment variables (never hardcoded)
• .env files in .gitignore
• Separate API keys for dev/staging/production
• moderation: true enabled for user-facing search
• Query input sanitized before API calls
• Domain allowlist/blocklist applied for sensitive use cases
• API key rotation procedure documented
• Git history scanned for accidentally committed keys

Error Handling

Security Issue	Detection	Mitigation
Exposed API key	git log -p search	Rotate key immediately at dashboard.exa.ai
Unsafe search results	User reports	Enable moderation: true
Untrusted domains	Review result URLs	Apply includeDomains filter
Query injection	Input validation	Sanitize before search

Examples

Scan Git History for Leaked Keys

set -euo pipefail
# Check if API key was ever committed
git log -p --all -S "EXA_API_KEY" -- "*.ts" "*.js" "*.py" "*.env" | head -20

Key Rotation Procedure

set -euo pipefail
# 1. Generate new key in dashboard.exa.ai
# 2. Update environment
export EXA_API_KEY="new-key-here"
# 3. Verify new key works
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" \
  -X POST https://api.exa.ai/search \
  -H "x-api-key: $EXA_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"test","numResults":1}'
# 4. Revoke old key in dashboard

Resources

• Exa API Authentication
• Exa Error Codes

Next Steps

For production deployment, see exa-prod-checklist.