Grok Bot routines: schedule a job without burning usage

To set up a routine, ask a Bot in its chat: say what to do and when. The Bot creates the routine, and from then on the job runs in the cloud at that time, with your laptop closed.

You need three things.

What you need

• A Bot that has already done the job once, the way you want it. Create your first Bot gets you there.
• The desktop app, because a phone can pause a routine but can't change one.
• Any plugin the job uses, connected and signed in.

#Ask for a routine in chat

A routine belongs to one Bot, and you create it by asking that Bot. The walkthrough follows one request from the message to its first change.

Walkthrough

Create a routine, then change it

1. 

   1Ask the Bot in its chat

   Say what the job is, what to hand back and when to run it. Ask for the result once now as well, so you see today what every run will send.

   Here is the same request with blanks for your own job.

   PromptA request that sets up a routineCopy

   Check [what to look at] and give me [what you want back, and how long]. Do it once now. Then set up a routine: every weekday at 8:00 AM, send the same thing in this chat. If nothing is new, say so in one line.

2. 

   2Click the routine's chip

   Within seconds a grey line appears in the chat: Created routine, then a chip with a clock and the routine's name. Click the chip.

3. Marker 1Marker 2

   1. 1Instruction is what the Bot does on every run. It's the Bot's rewrite of your request, so check what it added and what it dropped.
   2. 2When to run is the schedule as saved. A Bot sometimes picks a time a few minutes off the hour, or saves weekdays when you said every morning.

   3Check Instruction and When to run

   The routine opens in a panel on the right. Read it before you trust it, because the Bot wrote both parts.

4. 

   4Click Edit to change the routine

   Pause, Edit and a bin sit at the foot of the panel. Click Edit. No form opens: the message box fills with Edit your routine: and the routine's name.

5. Marker 1Marker 2

   1. 1The app wrote the first sentence. The second is the one you add.
   2. 2Updated routine confirms the change, and the open panel shows the new schedule.

   5Finish the sentence and send it

   After the routine's name, type what should change, then send. The schedule and the instruction both change this way.

A routine can also start when something happens: a message in Slack or Microsoft Teams, an email, or an event in GitHub, Linear, Sentry or PagerDuty. You ask for one the same way, and When to run then shows the trigger in words. Slack covers the Slack trigger.

If the job has fixed steps, save them as a skill first and name the skill in your request. Every run then follows the same steps.

#Pick how often it runs

Each run spends usage from the same weekly pool as your chats, so the schedule decides what a routine costs you. Slide the dial from once a week to every 5 minutes and watch the week fill up.

How many runs is that?

Slide how often the routine runs, then count the week.

How often the routine runs

Once a weekEvery 5 minutes

Weekdays only, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Sun

Up to three times a day. Each run spends usage. What one run costs isn't published: it follows how much work the job takes.

Every hour, or more often. Cursor's warning starts here: an hourly schedule or a short interval can use a week of usage in a day.

Every 5 minutes. The team that builds Grok Bot says never to run a routine this often. A schedule like this can use a week of usage in a day.

Every schedule on the dial

The routine runs	Runs a week, every day	Runs a week, weekdays 9 to 5
Once a week	1	1
Once a day	7	5
Three times a day	21	15
Every hour	168 24 a day	40 8 a day
Every 30 minutes	336 48 a day	80 16 a day
Every 15 minutes	672 96 a day	160 32 a day
Every 5 minutes	2,016 288 a day	480 96 a day

Three things the count leaves out:

• A run that opens five websites spends more than one that reads a single page.
• A Bot re-reads its conversation on every run. Give a frequent routine to a fresh Bot with a short chat.
• An event trigger runs as often as the event happens. Point it at one channel and one phrase, never at every new message.

Usage running out lists everything else that spends a week.

#See what a run looks like

At the scheduled time the Bot starts by itself, on its cloud computer. Closing the app or your laptop doesn't stop it.

The result arrives as a message in the Bot's chat. This routine was set for 3:38 PM.

Marker 1Marker 2

1. 1The message came at 3:43 PM, five minutes after the set time. A wait of a few minutes is normal.
2. 2Nothing labels the message as a routine's. It reads like any other reply.

• While a run is under way, the Bot's row in the sidebar shows a green dot.
• A routine's page looks the same after a run. The app keeps no list of past runs there, so the chat is your record.
• A routine told to stay quiet when nothing has changed sends nothing on a quiet day.
• To see a run without waiting, ask the Bot to run the routine now. That run spends usage like any other.

#Pause or delete a routine

Every routine a Bot owns is listed in one place. Click the Bot's name at the top of its chat, and the list is under the Details tab.

Marker 1Marker 2Marker 3

1. 1Details opens on the Bot's routines.
2. 2A switch that's off pauses the routine, and the row reads Paused. A paused routine doesn't run and spends nothing.
3. 3A routine that's on shows its schedule. Click the row to open the routine's page.

On a routine's page, Pause does the same job as the switch and turns into Resume.

To delete a routine, open it and click the bin beside Edit. Deleting stops every future run and can't be undone. Deleting a Bot deletes its routines with it.

#Fix a routine that ran late or not at all

A routine that seems broken is usually late, paused or quiet on purpose. Find what you're seeing in the first column.

A routine that isn't paused, shows the right schedule and still hasn't run for a day is one to report. Support is in the account menu, at the bottom left of the app.

#Check you've got it

One check on when a routine first runs.

Predict

It's 8:05 AM. You ask a Bot for a routine that runs every day at 8:00 AM. When does the first run arrive?

• Within a minute, because the routine was just created
• Tomorrow, a few minutes after 8:00 AM
• Today, as soon as you close the laptop

Show the answer

Tomorrow, a few minutes after 8:00 AM

A new routine waits for its next scheduled time, and today's 8:00 AM has passed. To get today's result as well, ask for it once now in the same message, as the walkthrough's request did.

A new routine waits for its next scheduled time, and today's 8:00 AM has passed. To get today's result as well, ask for it once now in the same message, as the walkthrough's request did.

Next, decide what your Bot may do on a run without stopping to ask you.

Next lessonSet what a Bot asks first

The approval card, Auto-review and the two kinds of rule, so a routine doesn't stall on a question nobody sees.

1. 6 October 2026
   First published.