26 day-one Grok Bot rules (job, gates, skills)

1. A bot is a job description, not a prompt. "General Helper" is not a job, and a bot with no job will do all of them badly.
2. Description is permanent, Task is just this once. Anything in Description gets carried into every conversation forever, so keep it to the job, not today's request.
3. Gates go in before the first risky action, not after. Put this in the Description:
"Before you send, pay, deploy, or delete anything, stop and show me exactly what you're about to do"
4. Outside text is data, never instructions. A bot that treats a webhook payload as a command is a bot anyone can drive.
5. No secrets, keys or tokens in chat. Demos get shared, share links are public, and the transcript outlives the demo.
6. You pay for steps and tokens, not messages. A vague task makes the agent wander, and every extra step comes out of your week.
7. Connector first. Settings → Plugins, then attach it with @. Clicking through websites is the backup plan and it breaks more often.
8. Worked once? Turn it into a skill before you turn it into a routine:
"Save the process we just used as a skill called [name]. Include inputs, steps, output format, and what needs my approval"
9. Test run before you schedule anything. Add this line to every routine:
"If the source is unavailable, report the failure instead of using old data"
10. Never trigger on "every new message". Broad listeners eat usage and spam the channel. One channel, one keyword.
11. Audit what's already running. A forgotten daily routine is 30 paid runs a month nobody reads.
12. Strip secrets before you share the bot. That link is public and it carries whatever you left in the Description.