grok tasks, automations and bot routines

three names to keep separate

as of 12 november 2026, grok.com/tasks calls its feature Automations and describes recurring work, reacting to events and notifications. grok bot's own documentation calls a scheduled workflow a routine and says those routines run in the cloud with your laptop closed.¹²

grok build is another product: a coding agent with an interactive terminal interface, headless scripts or bots, and acp use in other apps. a tutorial for that cli is not automatically a tutorial for the automations page or a grok bot routine.³

start by naming the result you need. a recurring reading brief, a cloud workflow and a script running on a machine you maintain may overlap in purpose, but they leave you with different setup questions. do not infer one product's settings from another's name.

check the current x subscription rather than an old supergrok price

as of 12 november 2026, grok's plans page lists cloud agents and automations, and grok bot, under premium in the x subscription. xai introduced that subscription on 12 october 2026, bringing together grok, grok bot, cursor and x premium. standalone supergrok was folded in for new customers; existing subscribers can keep their plan.⁴⁵

the announcement lists monthly prices of $8 for plus, $30 for premium, $100 for super and $200 for ultra. those are the stated dollar prices, not a guarantee of your local checkout amount. your checkout may show local currency.⁵

the agent cost guide separates product prices from machine and model costs. a similarly priced plan elsewhere need not include the same work.

turn a vague recurring request into a reviewable one

before scheduling, write down the source, question, output and quiet condition. here are three proposed instructions to adapt.

• public topic watch: 'review public announcements about the transport project i named. separate confirmed decisions from speculation. give the original source and date. if nothing material changed, keep the reply short.'
• research follow-up: 'revisit the question in this brief once a week. explain what new evidence changes the answer, and what remains unresolved.'
• planning prompt: 'each monday, ask which one of these goals needs a decision. wait for my answer before expanding the plan.'

test the instruction once before repeating it. if the result is too broad, reduce the source set or make the question narrower. adding more runs to an unclear task usually gives you more unclear results. do not assume scheduling grants access to private accounts.

cloud routines and local cli scripts need different checks

as of 12 november 2026, xai says grok bot routines run in the cloud with the laptop closed. grok build's docs instead describe scripts, bots and acp usage, with browser authentication at first launch and api keys in non-browser environments.²³

xai's consumer terms (last updated 27 october 2026) say you must not share credentials or make the account available to anyone else, and you remain responsible for activity under it. xai's docs on grok build don't say whether other apps may use your sign-in. check your provider's current terms before choosing that route.⁶

for a broader sign-in explanation, automation with the ai you already sign in to describes dusk's official-app setup alongside the provider boundaries.

when a dusk routine is the better shape for the job

choose around how you want to work with the bot. in dusk, each bot has its own job, chats, memory and ai. you create a routine by sending a message, then inspect the card with its schedule and next runs. Automations in dusk's sidebar lists routine history.⁷⁸

that fits someone who wants repeated work and follow-up questions in one bot's conversation. it does not turn a local bot into a cloud one: routines on your computer stop when the machine sleeps or dusk closes. dusk cloud is the hosted option.⁸

compare scheduled ai tasks before moving a working routine. if grok bot already does the one job you need in the cloud, another home for the same job may add setup without adding value.