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