Last verified against official xAI and Cursor documentation on October 17, 2026.

The real time savings in Grok Bot come when a Bot does a job for you every day without being asked. That is what skills and routines are for. This guide explains both in plain English, walks you through setup, and finishes with three examples you can borrow for your own business.

Skills vs routines in one minute

The official docs define two building blocks (Skills and routines, xAI docs):

A skill is a reusable set of instructions for how to do a task. Skills are shared across all of your Bots, although a Bot may still need the right connector or login to use one.
A routine tells one Bot when to run a workflow, either on a schedule or after an event.

Think of a skill as the recipe and a routine as the kitchen timer. The docs recommend this order: do the task once by hand with the Bot, make it reliable, save it as a skill, and only then automate it.

Step 1: Do the task once, together

Open a chat with the Bot that should own the job and give it a real task with a clear finish line. Cursor's getting-started guide says a strong request states the outcome, the sources, the constraints, the deliverable, and where the Bot should stop for you (Get started).

If the task needs an app such as Gmail or Google Sheets, connect it from Connect apps in the sidebar (Connect plugins). If the Bot needs to log in to a website, it hands you the computer so you can type the password or two-factor code yourself. The Bot does not see your password, and the session stays signed in for future tasks (Get started).

Review the result and correct it until you would be happy to receive it every day.

Step 2: Save it as a skill

Once the result is right, ask the Bot to save the process. The xAI docs give this example prompt:

Save the process we just used as a skill called "Weekly account health." Include the source systems, risk definitions, output format, and the rule that customer contact always requires approval.

According to the docs, a useful skill covers six things: when to use it, required inputs and access, the sequence of work, how to check the result, what to return, and what needs your approval (Skills and routines).

To use a saved skill later, type / in the desktop message box. Type @ to mention Bots, groups, routines and connectors. If a skill does not show up, the docs say to open Connect apps, then Your plugins, then Manage plugins and skills, and check that it is listed under Private skills.

Option: teach by showing

Where it is available, Teach a task lets you show the Bot a browser workflow instead of describing it. The docs list these steps: open a one-to-one Bot conversation and its computer view, choose Teach a task, describe the result, do the workflow once, stop the recording, then review the draft skill and test it on a safe example. Recording is limited to ten minutes and does not capture microphone audio. This feature is rolling out gradually, so if you do not see it, just ask the Bot to write a skill from the task you finished (Skills and routines). Teaching is a desktop-only flow (Get started).

Step 3: Create a routine

Routines are created by asking in chat. Say what the Bot should do and when. Cursor's help center uses the example "Every weekday at 9:00 AM, summarize new support tickets in this chat" (Routines, Cursor help).

Before you confirm, the xAI docs suggest checking six things: which Bot owns it, the schedule and time zone, the input source, the expected result, the approval boundary, and what should happen if a source is missing.

Schedules. Use plain words like "every weekday at 8:00 AM" or "every 2 hours." Schedules follow the Timezone setting in Settings under Bot. A new routine waits for its next scheduled time and does not run the moment you create it (Routines). Schedules must be at least five minutes apart (Skills and routines).

Triggers. A routine can also start when something happens. Cursor's help center lists a Slack message; a GitHub, Linear, Sentry or PagerDuty event; an email to your Bot's own address; or a webhook call (Routines). Email routines can watch for mail from anyone, from a specific address or from a whole domain, but cannot filter by subject (Agent email). Keep triggers narrow. A trigger on every message in a busy channel runs often and burns usage.

Step 4: Test it

Open the routine on desktop and choose Test. The result appears in the Bot's chat. Be careful: a test does real work. It can change files and use connected apps, so use a safe input (Routines).

Check that it used current data, matched your format, stopped at the approval point, and reported failures clearly (Skills and routines).

Step 5: Manage and adjust

On desktop, click the Bot's name at the top of the chat and find Routines on the Details tab. Each routine has Pause or Resume, Test, Edit and Delete routine. Choosing Edit starts a chat message to the Bot beginning "Edit your routine:" so you can describe the change. On the phone, open the Bot's profile, where you can view routines, see run history, and tap Add routine (Routines).

Useful limits from the docs: a Bot can own up to 50 routines, the app keeps the 20 most recent runs for each, and deleting a routine cannot be undone. Deleting a Bot also deletes its routines (Skills and routines).

One known issue: Cursor reports that some runs fail with "Automation run rate limit exceeded," a shared limit rather than your own usage. These runs are not retried automatically, so rerun with Test (Routines).

3 small-business examples

Each example follows the docs' advice: draft and prepare first, keep sending behind approval.

1. Bakery: morning order digest

Setup: Connect Gmail. Do the task once, then save it as a skill called "Order digest."

Every weekday at 6:30 AM, run the Order digest skill. Read new emails in my inbox from the last 24 hours that mention an order, pickup or catering. List each order with customer name, items, quantity and pickup time, sorted by pickup time. Flag anything missing a pickup time. Do not reply to anyone. If Gmail is unavailable, tell me instead of guessing.

2. Home services company: new booking intake

Setup: Claim a Bot email address and have your booking form send notifications to it. Connect Google Sheets.

When an email arrives from *@yourbookingtool.com, read the booking details, add a row to the "Jobs" sheet with name, address, service and requested date, and draft a short confirmation email to the customer. Leave the draft for my approval.

Every email the Bot sends from its own address waits for you to press Send, even inside a routine (Agent email).

3. Boutique shop: Monday price check

Setup: Give the Bot a list of three competitor product pages. Connect Google Sheets.

Every Monday at 8:00 AM, visit the competitor pages in the "Watch list" sheet. Record the current price and stock status of each listed product in a new dated column. Highlight any price that changed more than 10% since last week. If a page fails to load, mark it "not checked" instead of reusing old data.

Some sites block automation. When that happens, the Bot should hand the step to you rather than work around it (FAQ).

Quick safety checklist

Automate preparation before action.
Require approval for sending, purchasing, deleting or publishing.
Tell the Bot what to do when data is missing or out of date.
Re-test after a website or app changes.

These come straight from the docs' "Design routines for trust" list (Skills and routines).

Skip the blank page. Download our free Grok Bot starter templates with five ready-to-paste Bot setups and routines.

Want routines built around your business? CNR Consulting can design, test and hand over routines that fit how you already work. Book a quick chat.