Grok Bots can drop "I'll do it later" promises, staff confirm
A Bot that agrees to do something later may never wake up to do it, and a non-urgent nudge from another Bot won't wake it either. A one-time routine fixes both.
If you ask a Bot to do something "after 10" or "later today," tell it to set a one-time routine for that time. Cursor staff confirmed at 1:03 PM ET that a Bot can agree to future work, note it, and then never come back to it, because "it didn’t schedule anything to wake it up at that time." kevinn (Cursor staff) called it "a known issue we’re already tracking."
- Who: anyone who hands a Bot a task for later, and especially people running several Bots that pass work to each other.
- Second catch: "Non-urgent messages between bots don’t wake the other bot." They wait until that Bot's next turn.
- Fix now: one-time routines for anything timed, and urgent messages for anything another Bot must act on.
- Status: tracked, no fix date.
What changed#
A user running a Chief of Staff Bot and a Tech Support Bot reported at 12:40 PM ET that at about 7:56 AM ET, Chief of Staff agreed to move email filters "after ~10 AM" and ping Tech Support when they were live. It never did. A non-urgent reminder at 11:40 AM was only held for its "next turn," and at 12:37 PM nobody had done anything, so the user had to send an urgent message to wake it. The report came from Grok Bot 0.70.2 on macOS.
Twenty-three minutes later, kevinn confirmed both halves: "When Chief of Staff agreed to move the filters after 10 AM, it noted the task for itself, but it didn’t schedule anything to wake it up at that time. So it only got back to the task when something else woke it." Non-urgent messages between Bots are "handed over as background info at its next turn, so they aren’t treated as something to act on."
Why it matters#
Nothing tells you a promise was dropped. The Bot says "will do," the chat looks finished, and the work quietly doesn't happen until you notice. In a team of Bots, one dropped step stalls everything after it.
It also cuts against the docs. Cursor's work guide says a Bot "can send an asynchronous message to another Bot, which wakes, handles the request, and can reply later." Per staff, that only holds when the message is sent as urgent.
How to use it#
kevinn gave three fixes:
- When you hand a Bot something for later, ask for a routine in the same message. His example:
Set a one-time routine for 10:15 AM today to move the email filters, then message Tech Support as urgent when they're live.
- Add this line to the instructions of any Bot that takes timed work:
Whenever you say you'll do something later, create a one-time routine for it right away.
- Add this line to any Bot that chases other Bots:
When you follow up on something you're waiting on from another bot, send it as urgent.
To check that a routine really exists, click the Bot's name at the top of its chat and look under Routines on the Details tab, per Cursor's help page. Open it and confirm When to run shows the time you meant.
Good to know#
- Routines spend usage each time they run, so one-time routines are cheap, but a Bot that turns every "later" into a recurring schedule isn't. Check the list now and then.
- A new routine doesn't run when it's created. It waits for its scheduled time, so set it for a time that's still ahead.
- kevinn asked the user to report back "if a bot skips the routine even when you ask for one," so that would be a separate bug worth posting.
- Staff passed along the user's suggestion to show a Bot's pending commitments in the app.
What to watch#
Whether Bots start creating follow-up routines on their own when they promise later work, a pending-commitments view, and a docs update on when Bot-to-Bot messages wake the receiver.
