A task you’ve already done successfully with your bot at least once.
A skill is a saved set of instructions your bots reuse, and good Grok Bot skills are what keep every bot consistent. Grok Bot’s own docs recommend starting with a one-time task, making it reliable, saving the method as a skill and only then automating it. Good skills share six parts.
Steps
When to use it
One or two lines that tell the bot when this skill applies, and when it doesn’t. “Use when I ask for a weekly summary of my inbox. Not for replying to emails.”
Inputs and access
What the skill needs: which apps, files or logins. If a bot lacks access, it should say so instead of guessing.
The sequence of work
Numbered steps, short and concrete. Name the sources to use and the order to use them in.
How to check the result
A test the bot runs before it reports: every number has a source, every link opens, the format matches.
What to return
The exact output: a table in chat, a Page, a file in a named folder. Say how long.
What needs approval
The actions that always stop for your yes: sending, posting, buying, deleting, publishing or changing anything live.
Screenshot comingA saved skill showing the six headings
Copy-paste prompt
Paste this to your bot. Replace anything in [brackets].
Copy-paste prompt
Save the process we just used as a skill called “[Skill name]”. Write it with six headings: When to use it, Inputs and access, Steps, How to check the result, What to return, What needs my approval. Keep it under one page in plain words. Show it to me before saving.
Check it worked
The skill has all six headings.
You tested it on a fresh example and the result matched “What to return”.
It stopped for approval where you said it should.
Common mistakes
Writing a skill before the task has worked once. Make it work, then save it.
Long skills full of edge cases. If it’s over a page, split it.
No approval section. Every skill that can send, spend or delete needs one.