This is a zero-basis, full-process tutorial for Grok Bot, helping you thoroughly understand the personal AI created by the world's most impressive man.
1. What is Grok Bot and Why Is It So Popular?
We won't dwell on what Grok Bot is; the official website explains it clearly:
Among all overseas AI tools, Grok Bot has the simplest installation and account registration process, so please handle this part directly on the official site.
Let me briefly explain why Grok Bot is popular and how it differs from the Code Agents we commonly use.
The biggest difference from Code Agents: Bots are "people," not "projects."
General agents like Codex, WorkBuddy, and Claude Code operate on a project basis: every conversation and session revolves around a specific goal.
Grok Bot's greatest advantage is that you can view each Bot as your own servant. Each servant has its own identity, responsibilities, mission or personal tasks, and its own Skills.
Taking my role as a self-media blogger as an example:
My Bots are primarily built around operating and developing my knowledge site, as well as my daily self-media content. Each Bot has its own assigned duties and tasks.
Of course, if you work in finance, scientific research, or e-commerce, your Bot division of labor will differ from mine. How to configure each Bot, how they form groups, communicate, collaborate, and manage your daily life will be covered in detail later.
2. Musk Provides Every Account with a Cloud Computer
In Grok Bot, besides configuring Bots, another crucial point is that Musk provides a cloud computer for every account.
All Bots under your name share this one computer but have their own desktops without interfering with each other. The Heavy tier configuration is tested to be Xeon 8-core 8-thread, 16GB RAM, and 128GB storage (subject to actual availability).
This is also the biggest difference from the previously popular "Crayfish" (Xiaolongxia). Crayfish defaults to running on your local computer, meaning your computer must stay powered on for the Agent to run freely.
Grok Bot's usability lies in:
First, it has its own cloud computer that you can use freely. Most tasks can be completed on its own computer, such as installing open-source projects, browsing the web, querying information, and various automation tasks, none of which require your local computer to be always on.
Even smoother, the context between Grok Bot's desktop and mobile ends is connected. From the input side, you can easily initiate conversations on either computer or phone. If your computer is also on, connecting your phone to your local computer or to its cloud computer is very seamless. You can interact with it anytime, anywhere, letting it do work for you.
3. Primary Bot: Your Chief Eunuch
When you open the Grok Bot page, you'll see a single Bot hanging at the top. This is your Primary Bot, or Main Bot. You can think of it as the head of your Bots, or your chief eunuch.
Its functions are no different from other Bots. The only difference is: according to the official description, it can proactively send you messages, and these proactive communications do not consume your quota. However, tests show that its frequency of initiating contact is actually quite low.
This means the more you chat with it and the more information it gathers about you, the more likely it is to proactively offer help based on your needs. This is a highlight of personal AI.
So, a reasonable usage is: When you don't know which Bot should handle a task, or when facing a large task requiring multiple Bots to collaborate, just throw the information at it.
Right-clicking allows you to switch other Bots to be the Primary Bot; this setting is flexible.
4. How to Create a Bot
Creating a Bot in Grok Bot is very simple.
The clumsy way: Manual creation. Click here to create a new Bot. It starts without a name; you can freely edit its name, tags, or change the avatar to one you like.
The smart way: Let a Bot create a Bot. Simply tell your Primary Bot or any Bot: "Help me create a Bot that does [what]." It will not only name it for you but also write out the tags and configurations.
5. What Kind of Bots Should You Create: A Few Directions
OK, creating Bots is a very casual matter; everyone has their own style, and there is no fixed formula. If you don't know how to build your own Bots yet, I'll give you a few directions to help you find your own methodology.
Browse the template market first
First, know that Bots support templates and sharing: you can share your Bots with others, and you can use others' templates directly. The official Grok Bot template market has many high-quality Bots. If you see ones you like, add them to your Bots directly.
Based on different responsibilities, Bots can generally be divided into the following types.
Direction 1: Fixed Task Bots
For example, this Bot of mine is specifically for monitoring my social media fan statistics.
A notable feature of this type of Bot is that we usually assign it a scheduled task, which you can see here.
It's best if these Bots execute their functions on their cloud computers. This way, regardless of whether your local computer is on, its cloud computer can complete daily tasks for you every day.
Creating this type of Bot is relatively simple. Give it a task first, such as monitoring data for the ID "麦当 mdldm" across all platforms, then let it run through the entire process once to see if it can retrieve the data.
Since it has its own small computer, it will figure things out itself. Even if it hits a wall, it will suggest solutions; you just need to cooperate with it to complete the task once fully.
Then, ask it to set this up as a scheduled routine. It will repeat these steps daily based on the successful operation we ran earlier.
Thus, you get this effect.
Similar examples include: regular news collection in a certain field, timed data analysis for an e-commerce product, or daily reports of operations on a specific platform or webpage. You can refer to this approach to build Bots.
Direction 2: Professional Domain Bots (Install Skills)
With the above type, you rarely interact with it because it just completes scheduled tasks daily; you only review the results, right?
How do you build tool-type Bots?
Take this Bot as an example; I call it "Master Wang Who Knows Yin Yang and Eight Trigrams" [To confirm: Please verify Bot name against screenshot], a Bot specifically for fortune-telling.
As everyone knows, I am quite superstitious.
When you have a specific daily need in a certain area like me, you can ask it to find corresponding Skills. Do you understand the concept of Skill? You can simply understand it as: someone else has packaged professional knowledge in a certain field.
For instance, I asked it to install pre-made metaphysics-related Skills. Once installed, this Bot becomes an expert in fortune-telling.
Next time I want to ask it something, it will naturally answer based on its professional knowledge.
You can use the same method to create your:
- Writer
- Fitness Coach
- Home Tutor for children's homework
- Fashion Stylist
Here is a universal method: If you don't know how to build it, do as I do: search GitHub for relevant Skills in that field, install them all, and it will likely become a Bot that meets your needs.
Direction 3: Tool-Type Bots (Connect CLI)
Having professional domain Bots isn't enough. Next are tool-type Skills, which depend heavily on your daily work.
For example, since I have a technical background, my local Codex has extensive project development documentation, so I connect Codex as a CLI tool to my Bot.
This has another benefit: Quotas from your other AI Agent accounts can also be accessed via this method into your Grok Bot. This makes your Grok Bot the chief coordinator, calling other Agents uniformly, and saving quotas because working in other AI accounts essentially doesn't consume Grok Bot's quota.
There are two ways to build this type of Bot:
- Keep your local computer on and let it directly call AI accounts on your local machine.
- Let it run your AI accounts on the cloud computer.
Both methods have pros and cons. I still recommend: if your account is already local, run it locally. The core reason is security; it won't get banned.
But the cloud computer has benefits too. For example, you can let it register accounts with overseas model companies like Claude. You know what I mean, right?
Or, if your quota is sufficient and you aren't worried about risks, you can let it install CLIs for various models on the cloud computer. This way, it runs on the cloud, doesn't eat your local resources, and serves you 24/7. This depends on your personal choice.
A small pitfall reminder: If you install CLIs like Codex on the cloud computer, it's best to re-authorize login on the cloud computer rather than copying the local login state. Otherwise, both sides will fight for the login state and can't be used simultaneously. Also, Codex device code login is off by default; enable it in "Account Security & Login" on the web version first.
Besides CLIs that log into AI accounts, other tools can be connected this way.
For example, I logged into Feishu CLI on both its cloud computer and my local computer. Feishu CLI conveniently connects me and Feishu. I just tell it via conversation: "Remind me to schedule an appointment in Feishu calendar tomorrow," "Check messages sent by members in a certain membership group," or "View a certain Feishu document or spreadsheet," and it can do these things freely with my permissions.
Frankly speaking, since Feishu CLI was open-sourced, I rarely write Feishu documents from scratch anymore; I mostly use it combined with AI models to help me. Sharing this method with you.
Similarly, you can connect your GitHub account, letting it manage GitHub via the gh CLI tool.
If you don't know which tools can be integrated, ask your Primary Bot. For example, if you use WeCom or a platform backend, ask if there are open interfaces or existing tools to quickly integrate.
Direction 4: Connector Bots
The last method involves connectors. Find the connector button, labeled "Connect Apps," in the bottom left corner.
This button helps you integrate various ecosystems, such as Twitter, Notion, Amazon, Figma, Canva. Think of it as Grok's official plugins. If you already use these platforms, integrating them makes management very convenient.
Here are a few recommendations to definitely integrate:
Part of why Grok is so powerful is its advanced integration with Twitter. As a keen primary information platform, Twitter's info can be valuable. So if you use Twitter, you must integrate it.
Password Manager
Simply put: after enabling this, your Grok Bot cloud computer connects with passwords stored in your local account, granting access permissions to those platforms by default.
Whether to enable it depends on whether you're willing to hand over account info. Handing it over brings convenience—is the trade-off worth it?
Some security points to keep in mind:
- Bots are not isolated. As mentioned, all Bots under your name share one cloud computer, so files, browser sessions, and login states are shared. Don't casually put sensitive accounts there, or grant read-only permissions.
- Deleting a Bot doesn't clear logins. Deleting a Bot only removes its profile, chats, and scheduled tasks. Authorizations on external services must be revoked separately.
- Handle passwords, verification codes, and payments yourself. Use "Take Over" to control its computer manually; don't paste passwords directly in chat.
Email (A Great Freebie)
Each Grok Bot cloud computer can register its own email address, something I hadn't thought of before. Just let it use its cloud computer to register an email, and you get a free overseas email account.
What use is this account? Use your imagination; I won't elaborate here.
6. Between Bots: They Communicate with Each Other
After covering Bot creation and directions, let's discuss relationships between Bots.
Recently popular personal AIs include ChatGPT's dots and Meta's Muse [To confirm: Product name spelling]. One thing I find better about Grok Bot compared to them is: Your Bots can communicate with each other; they pass messages.
Here's a practical tip. For example, today I used "Content Analysis Master" [To confirm: Bot name] to collect daily AI news. After getting the news, I immediately asked it to find my "Material Publishing Bot" and "Feishu Manager" to write based on this news. You'll see them talking to each other.
Note how it synced the organized and distilled messages directly to my Feishu Management Assistant and Material Publishing Master. Upon receiving the info, they started working independently.
After finishing, they inform each other:
"Hey, I'm done, tell your master."
The smoothness of this collaboration depends entirely on how clearly you define each Bot's responsibilities and how capable each Bot is. It's quite interesting.
If your Bots have clear capability boundaries and well-defined names/tags, their work and collaboration will be very smooth.
Once you define each person's capabilities and duties, you don't need to assign tasks individually; they communicate themselves.
7. Private Chats Are Possible, But Can You Group Them? Yes, You Can
This is a group I built around my personal knowledge site. There's a leader called "McMoney" (Make Money).
I provided detailed background for this Bot regarding the knowledge site, so it understands the business logic, project code, and overall operations. Then I grouped it with my Feishu Document Bot and my dedicated Development Codex Bot.
The benefit is: whenever I want to launch an activity on the knowledge site, say, hosting a member livestream tomorrow about new Grok Bot features, I just mention it in the group or tell the leader. Upon receiving the message, it notifies Feishu Management to write the operational manual, plan, and scripts based on current status, while notifying Codex to create a new event page on the site to host the livestream.
You can see the three chatting happily in the group.
Group chat gives me a bit of an emperor feeling. These little servants have their own tasks, but when I have a complex big project needing unified progress toward one goal, the group feels like: I just need to specify the goal, and the Bots divide the work and solve it themselves.
However! I must pour cold water here: Group chat is the most quota-consuming feature in Grok Bot.
Why? Because every Bot in the group reads the same message again and replies individually. If there are several Bots, one message consumes multiple times the quota. For example, adding 4 Bots means one sentence costs four times the money. Plus, they continue chatting among themselves, burning quota every round. Tie Zhu mentioned someone added 4 Bots to a group and instantly consumed 25% of the weekly quota.
So my advice is:
- Prioritize private messaging for daily collaboration. Point-to-point communication between Bots handles most tasks, waking up only the necessary Bot.
- Reserve group chat for truly complex big projects. Even if you start a group, don't cram too many Bots in; let finished Bots leave the group.
Reference: Tie Zhu @cgnot996 original post: Group chat quota consumption
8. Advanced Techniques
Here are some advanced techniques.
Advanced Technique 1: One-Tap Knowledge Base Capture on Mobile
I highly recommend this technique, inspired by Teacher Tie Zhu's sharing.
The scheduled task Bots discussed earlier "work when the time comes." Is there a way to make them "work immediately when I have something"? Yes, using Shortcuts + Webhook.
First, explain Webhook: Think of it as a dedicated URL given by the Bot. Whenever content is sent to this URL, the Bot wakes up and starts working.
So the workflow is:
- Create a Webhook trigger for your Knowledge Base Bot in Grok Bot, obtaining its address and key.
- Create a Shortcut on your phone to send content to this address.
- In the future, whenever you encounter valuable content—short videos, articles, or web links—tap share and select this Shortcut.
Upon receipt, the Bot reads, transcribes, organizes key points, and writes to your knowledge base automatically, without you managing it.
Going further, screenshots, recordings, or even chat logs can be captured this way. However, images, audio, and files must first be uploaded to a temporary cloud drive, then the link sent to the Bot.
You can also hand screenshots to an "Accounting Butler" Bot, letting it automatically write to a Feishu multi-dimensional table, removing accounting worries entirely.
Reference: Tie Zhu @cgnot996 original post: Webhook + Shortcuts, automated knowledge pipeline, Tie Zhu @cgnot996 original post: Advanced Shortcuts
Advanced Technique 2: Assign Tasks While Scrolling Posts
Remember the platform we said must be integrated? Now, when you scroll past a valuable post, simply @bot in the comments to notify your Grok Bot.
For example, Tie Zhu's method: His Primary Bot receives it and automatically forwards it to a dedicated "Knowledge Manager" Bot for capture.
This returns to the Primary Bot usage discussed earlier: You just casually @ it, and your chief eunuch arranges the corresponding servant to handle the rest.
Reference: Tie Zhu @cgnot996 original post: @bot task assignment
9. Conclusion
That's the basic framework. Start building your own team of digital servants.
