exa-architecture-variants

# Exa Architecture Variants ## Overview Three deployment architectures for Exa neural search at different scales. Each uses real Exa SDK methods: `search`, `searchAndContents`, `findSimilar`, `getContents`, and `answer`. ## Decision Matrix | Factor | Direct Search | Cached Search | RAG Pipeline | |--------|--------------|---------------|--------------| | Volume | < 1K/day | 1K-50K/day | Any volume | | Latency | 500-2000ms | ~50ms (cached) | 3-8s total | | Use Case | Simple search UI | Content aggregation | AI answers with citations | | Complexity | Low | Medium | High | | Cache Required | No | Yes (Redis/LRU) | Yes | | Exa Methods | `searchAndContents` | `searchAndContents` + cache | All methods | ## Instructions ### Variant 1: Direct Search Integration **Best for:** Adding search to an existing app, < 1K queries/day. ```typescript import Exa from "exa-js"; import express from "express"; const app = express(); const exa = new Exa(process.env.EXA_API_KEY); // Simple search endpoint app.get("/api/search", async (req, res) => { const query = req.query.q as string; if (!query) return res.status(400).json({ error: "q required" }); try { const results = await exa.searchAndContents(query, { type: "auto", numResults: 5, text: { maxCharacters: 500 }, highlights: { maxCharacters: 300, query }, }); res.json(results.results.map(r => ({ title: r.title, url: r.url, snippet: r.highlights?.join(" ") || r.text?.substring(0,...