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Exa Prompting Guide

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Why Prompting Matters

Exa’s neural search excels at understanding natural language descriptions of web content. For optimal results, frame queries as if you’re describing a link to someone.

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Quick Solutions

  1. Use Autoprompt: Set use_autoprompt=True for automatic query optimization.
  2. Use Auto Search: Use type="auto" for intelligent routing to auto vs keyword search, especially where neural is not returning useful results.

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Prompting Tips

  1. Phrase as Statements: “Here’s a great article about X:” works better than “What is X?”
  2. Add Context: Include modifiers like “funny”, “academic”, or specific websites to narrow results.
  3. End with a Colon: Many effective prompts end with ”:”, mimicking natural link sharing.

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Examples

Bad: “best restaurants in SF” Good: “Here is the best restaurant in SF:” Bad: “What’s the best way to learn cooking?” Good: “This is the best tutorial on how to get started with cooking:” Remember, Exa is continually improving. These guidelines help leverage its current strengths while we work on making prompting even more intuitive.