Get Started

Get Grok Bot running, set its first role, and verify it can actually do things for you.

This is the shortest path from “I have an account” to “my bot did something useful.” Resist the urge to wire up five integrations first — the goal here is one verified loop.

1. Open Grok Bot where you will actually use it

Grok Bot lives inside the Grok ecosystem (grok.com and X). Pick the surface you already have open every day, because a bot you never check is a bot that silently stops working. For most people that means starting on the web app and adding mobile later for approvals on the go.

2. Give it a role, not a hello

The first message sets the tone. A weak start is “hi.” A strong start is a two-line role:

You are my operations assistant. You keep a file of my open threads
and their next actions. When I give you a task, restate it in one
line, state your plan, and ask at most one clarifying question.

Two things are happening in that prompt: role (what it is) and protocol (how it should behave). Every good prompt in our use case library has both. Copy one and adapt the role line to your life — that is the fastest start of all.

3. Run one real task end-to-end

Pick something small but genuine:

• “Summarize this article into three bullets I can forward.”
• “Draft a reply to this email; ask me nothing unless a fact is missing.”
• “Start a file called open-threads.md and add the three things I’m waiting on.”

You are verifying three capabilities at once: it can do the work, write to its workspace, and come back with something you’d actually use. If any of the three fails, fix that before moving on — troubleshooting has the checklist.

4. Set the guardrails while it’s cheap

Before the bot has any access, decide:

• What it may read — start with nothing, add deliberately.
• What it may do on its own — draft-only is a fine default; sending and buying come later.
• Where it reports — one place, so you can audit it at a glance.

Write these three lines into the chat and ask it to save them to a file it re-reads. That file is your constitution; amend it as trust grows.

5. Schedule your first routine (optional but recommended)

One daily check-in is the smallest habit that compounds:

Every morning at 7:30, read open-threads.md and send me one message:
what moved, what's blocked, what you need from me. If nothing changed,
send exactly: "All quiet."

The “all quiet” rule matters more than it looks — a bot that only speaks when there is signal is a bot you will keep listening to.

Checklist before you move on

• Bot has a written role and protocol
• One real task completed end-to-end
• Workspace file created and re-read by the bot
• Guardrails saved to a file
• (Optional) One daily routine scheduled

Next: Install a shared bot to skip the setup work entirely, or continue to Your First Real Workflow.