The Four MCP Servers to Install Before You Open Claude Again
Out of the box Claude can read your files and run your commands. It cannot search the live web, open a page and click through it, read a site it was not handed, or check the current docs for a library. Four servers close those four gaps. This is the setup guide, with the exact command for each and the caveat nobody mentions.
First
Exa: search that returns content, not links
Most search tools hand back ten links and leave the model to fetch each one. Exa returns clean, ready to use content directly, and it matches on meaning rather than keywords. Two tools are on by default, web_search_exa and web_fetch_exa. Two more can be enabled for advanced filtering and multi step research.
exa-labs/exa-mcp-server, 4,800 stars. Needs an API key from the Exa dashboard.
{
"mcpServers": {
"exa": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp"]
}
}
}In Claude Desktop you can skip the file entirely: Settings, then Connectors, search for Exa, click the plus.
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