10 best Grok Bot routines to set up first, with copy-paste prompts (unofficial guide)

The short answer

Start with routines that read and prepare, and keep anything that sends, buys, deletes, or publishes behind your approval. That's the official advice too: "Automate preparation before execution."

Do the job once in chat first. Fix the result until it's right, save the method as a skill, test it on a second input, and only then ask the Bot to put it on a schedule.

Most of the routines below are our picks built on the official use-case examples. Where a prompt comes straight from the docs, we say so. This guide is independent and unofficial. It isn't affiliated with or endorsed by xAI, Grok, X, or Cursor.

How Grok Bot routines work

A skill is a reusable set of instructions for how to do a task. A routine tells one Bot when to run a workflow (docs). So the skill is the recipe, and the routine is the timer or trigger.

To create one, ask the Bot that should own the job, in plain words: "Every weekday at 8:00 AM, ...". It saves the routine and shows its next run. On desktop, click the Bot's name at the top of the chat and find Routines on the Details tab. On the phone, open the Bot's profile and tap Add routine under Routines.

Schedules follow the Timezone setting under Settings → Bot. A new routine waits for its next scheduled time and doesn't run when you create it, so use Test to try it right away. A test does real work, so give it a safe input.

Besides schedules, a routine can start from a Slack message, a GitHub, Linear, Sentry, or PagerDuty event, an email to your Bot's own address, or a webhook call (Cursor help center).

Limits worth knowing: a Bot can own up to 50 routines, schedules must be at least five minutes apart, the app keeps the last 20 run records per routine, and deleting a routine can't be undone. Routines can run up to 300 times an hour in total, and each one up to 200 times an hour.

Daily routines (1 to 4)

1. Morning brief. Each weekday morning, the Bot reviews what changed across your inbox, calendar, and the Slack channels you approve, and returns only what matters, each item with its source, why it matters, the next step, and whether you owe a decision. This is the official Chief of Staff example. Prompt: "Every weekday at 7:30 AM, review activity since yesterday across my inbox, calendar, and these Slack channels: [list]. Return only items that map to my priorities in [doc]. For each, include the source, why it matters, the next step, and whether I owe a decision. Don't send messages or change meetings." Full walkthrough: our daily briefing guide.

2. Inbox triage, twice a day. The Bot sorts new mail into reply, read, and ignore, drafts replies for the ones that need you, and flags likely scams with the red flags it saw. Prompt: "At 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM on weekdays, triage unread email since the last run. Sort it into Reply, Read, and Ignore, draft replies for Reply, and flag likely phishing with the reasons. Don't send anything or click links in flagged threads." Scoping each run to mail since the last run keeps it cheap.

3. Daily news digest on one topic. A popular beginner setup on YouTube is an 8 AM news routine. Keep it narrow so it stays useful. Prompt: "Every weekday at 8:00 AM, find the 5 most important news items from the last 24 hours about [topic or industry]. Give each a two-sentence summary, why it matters to me, and the link. Skip anything you can't source."

4. X watch for your niche. Bots can read public X posts without you connecting an account. Prompt: "Every weekday at 5:00 PM, check public X posts from these accounts and searches: [list]. Summarize what's new that matters for [goal], with links. Don't like, reply, or post." See our guide on monitoring X with Grok Bot.

Weekly routines (5 to 8)

5. Weekly business review. Every Monday, the Bot pulls last week's numbers from the sheets and tools you connect and writes a one-page review with what changed and what needs a decision. Prompt: "Every Monday at 8:00 AM, build last week's business review from [sheet or tools]. Show revenue, leads, and [metrics] against the previous week, call out the three biggest changes with the numbers behind them, and list decisions I need to make. If a source is missing, say so instead of using old data."

6. Weekly expense summary. Based on the official Expense Manager example. Prompt: "Every Friday at 2:00 PM, build this week's expense summary from [expense system] and the attached policy. Match receipts from my inbox, flag missing categories or policy exceptions with the policy line, and draft one follow-up per person. Return the summary and drafts. Don't send messages or change reimbursements." A free Weekly Expense Summary skill is in our skills library.

7. Prospect research to a review list. The official Sales Outbound example suggests a nightly research routine that stops at a review list once the output is reliable. Prompt: "Every weeknight at 9:00 PM, research the new accounts in [CRM view]. Score them against my ideal customer profile, find up to three relevant contacts each, and draft outreach in the style of the attached examples. Skip anyone already in a sequence. Return a review list. Don't send or enroll anyone." See our prospect research guide.

8. Customer watch list. Based on the official Account Health example. Prompt: "Every Monday at 10:00 AM, review the accounts in [list or CRM view]. Combine recent usage, support tickets, renewal dates, and activity into a ranked watch list with the evidence, why it matters, and a suggested next step. Don't contact customers or edit the CRM." The docs suggest putting your risk thresholds in the Bot's description so results stay consistent week to week.

Watchers and event routines (9 and 10)

9. Price or restock watch. Ask the Bot to check a product page once a day and tell you only when the price drops below your number or the item is back. Prompt: "Once a day at noon, check [product page] and tell me only if the total price with shipping is under [amount] or it's back in stock. Don't add to cart or buy. Stop watching after [date]." Some big retailers block AI agents, so check our shopping guide first. A deadline keeps it from running forever.

10. A Slack trigger with a narrow rule. This one comes from the docs: "When a message in #customer-escalations contains a support ticket link and the phrase 'needs repro,' open the ticket, reproduce the issue in staging, and post a repro pack in this conversation. Never post back to Slack without approval." Swap in your own channel and phrase. Slack triggers need Slack connected on the Cursor account that owns the Bot, and only new messages count.

Bonus for personal use: the community Spam-Call Scrubber template rechecks people-search sites on a schedule after filing opt-outs. Our step-by-step guide covers it.

Keep routines from eating your weekly usage

Every run spends usage. The help center says an hourly schedule, a short interval, or a Slack trigger on a busy channel "can use a week of usage in a day." A routine that never runs spends nothing, but Test does, because it does the work.

Pick the least frequent schedule that still helps. Daily or twice daily beats hourly for almost every job on this list. Scope each run to what's new since the last run.

Avoid broad triggers like "every new message." The docs warn they create noise, use up usage, and raise the chance of acting on irrelevant input.

If usage drops fast, pause routines you don't need, then ask the Bot to widen schedules and narrow triggers before you raise a plan or on-demand limit. Grok Bot may also ask whether to keep routines running after you've been away a long time, and pause them if you don't answer, so review paused routines when you're back.

Write routines you can trust

When you create a routine, confirm six things, as the docs list them: which Bot owns it, the schedule and time zone, the input source, the expected result, the approval point, and what happens when a source is missing.

Add a no-data rule: "If the source is unavailable, report the failure instead of using old data." Tell the Bot where to report partial results.

Keep sending, buying, deleting, publishing, and production changes behind approval, even after a routine has run well for weeks. Re-test whenever a website, app, or file format changes.

If a routine didn't run, check that it isn't paused, that When to run shows the schedule you expect in the right time zone, and, for Slack, that the message was new and matched the phrase. A run that fails with "Automation run rate limit exceeded" isn't retried on its own, so rerun it with Test.