Install as a skill

The copied prompt asks Claude Code to install the skill first, then confirm an Exa API key is visible from its own shell — without ever asking for, printing, or saving the key itself. If no key is set anywhere, it points you to a bundled setup helper you run once in your own terminal: it prompts for the key, stores it privately in ~/.config/exa/key, and verifies it live — no shell-profile editing and no restart. Create a key at the Exa dashboard first.

If you want to run the install yourself, use the commands below for Claude Code. The skill follows the open Agent Skills standard, so the same bundle installs into any compatible agent. The command downloads and unpacks the exa-candidate-sourcing skill folder into that agent's skills directory.

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && \
  curl -fsSL https://demos.exa.ai/candidate-sourcing/exa-candidate-sourcing.tar.gz \
  | tar -xz -C ~/.claude/skills

mkdir -p .claude/skills && \
  curl -fsSL https://demos.exa.ai/candidate-sourcing/exa-candidate-sourcing.tar.gz \
  | tar -xz -C .claude/skills

A single exa-candidate-sourcing/ folder: the SKILL.md entrypoint, a references/ folder (candidate-sourcing and MCP workflows, scoring and calibration constants, the Agent API reference, and a worked example), a viewer/ template plus renderer script that turn the output CSV into an interactive HTML shortlist, and an optional Python orchestrator/ that runs the whole pipeline end to end. Nothing else touches your machine.

Want to read it first? View the SKILL.md.

Auto-triggers when you ask Claude to source candidates or turn a JD into a shortlist. Invoke explicitly with /exa-candidate-sourcing.

If the skill does not show up right away, restart the agent so it re-scans its skills directory. Then give it a job description (pasted text or a URL) and ask it to source candidates; it produces a ranked, verified candidates.csv, an interactive candidates.html viewer you can open in a browser, and a shortlist in chat.