Exa Events

Exa Event Discovery

Use this skill to perform targeted web searches for events, hackathons, and conferences using the Exa API via curl. It relies on domain targeting and date filtering to find current and relevant gatherings.

Event Search Approach

Since events are often hosted on specific community and ticketing platforms, filtering by includeDomains produces the most accurate results.

1. Finding Events and Hackathons

This search targets major event platforms like Luma, Devpost, Meetup, and Eventbrite. Adjust the query to specify the topic and location.

curl -X POST 'https://api.exa.ai/search' \
  -H "x-api-key: $EXA_API_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
  "query": "upcoming AI hackathons and tech meetups in London",
  "type": "auto",
  "num_results": 15,
  "includeDomains": ["lu.ma", "meetup.com", "eventbrite.com", "partiful.com", "devpost.com"],
  "contents": {
    "highlights": { "max_characters": 4000 }
  }
}'

Tip: You can use startPublishedDate (e.g., "2024-01-01T00:00:00.000Z") to ensure you only get recently created event pages, filtering out years-old past events.

2. Finding Event Organizers and Community Builders

While you can extract host details directly from the event page highlights above, you can also pivot to finding event organizers directly using the people category search.

curl -X POST 'https://api.exa.ai/search' \
  -H "x-api-key: $EXA_API_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
  "query": "hackathon organizer and tech community builder in London",
  "category": "people",
  "num_results": 10,
  "contents": {
    "highlights": { "max_characters": 4000 }
  }
}'

Note: The people category search does not support date filters. Domain filters are also restricted to LinkedIn domains when searching for people.

Key Parameters & Platforms for Events

• Targeted Domains (includeDomains): Restricting searches to event sites eliminates irrelevant content. Common domains include:
• devpost.com (Best for hackathons)
• lu.ma (Tech meetups and social gatherings)
• eventbrite.com (General events and conferences)
• meetup.com (Community groups)
• partiful.com (Social events)
• splashthat.com (Corporate and branded events)
• Time Sensitivity: Add "maxAgeHours": 720 (approx 1 month) to the root of the JSON payload if you want to bypass the cache and prioritize fresh pages.

Token Isolation Strategy (Critical)

For heavy search operations that pull in large amounts of data (like multiple event descriptions):

1. Never run Exa searches directly in the main context.
2. Spawn a sub-agent / teammate to act as a worker.
3. Have the teammate run the Exa search, read the highlights, and extract the relevant entities (Event Name, Date, URL, Organizer Name/Contact).
4. The teammate should return only a distilled output (e.g., a compact markdown table) to the main context.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: RowanAldean
• Source: RowanAldean/exa-skills
• License: Unlicense

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.