Grok Bot launches its own email addresses at mail.grokbot.com

Update, Oct 9, 2:30 PM ET: We moved the Bot email launch to the top of this issue after @bot announced it at 1:25 PM ET. The morning items follow.

Grok BotWhat's new#

• Bot email is live: Grok Bot started rolling out mail.grokbot.com addresses at 1:25 PM ET Friday. Ask your Bot, or tag @bot on X, to claim one. Team admins have to turn it on first. (confirmed) See the full story.
• "Bot failed to respond" errors: Fixed. Staff say Thursday's capacity problem cleared at about 5 PM ET, and a fix for a separate regional failure went out Thursday evening, UTC. (confirmed)
• Safety filter blocks: If one Bot fails while your others reply, its chat history may be tripping the model provider's safety filter. Move new work to another Bot. (confirmed)
• Stray periods: Bots post a lone "." when they should stay quiet, and in group chats the other Bots answer it. (confirmed)
• Scheduled routines: Still late or skipping slots since Thursday morning, with no all-clear. Start urgent routines by hand, since manual runs aren't held back. (confirmed)
• HTTPS-only network: Still open. In our test, connecting by IP address got mail and SSH connections through. (confirmed)
• Template skills: Staff replaced the copy and paste workaround with screenshots. (confirmed)
• No new version: The changelog still ends at 0.68.1 from Oct 7. (confirmed)

Grok BotHow people are using it#

• Watch a thread overnight: Lauren Tan tagged @bot in a post at 3 AM ET, asking it to rank that post's replies and Slack her the list at 8am. You can also reply to any post with @bot, and say what to rank and when to send it. Credit: @poteto (https://x.com/poteto/status/2108452552404840649).
• Skills on desktop: A Bot's details pane no longer shows its skills, but Cmd+Shift+M still opens them under Private skills, where you can edit them. Credit: mohitjain and kevinn, Cursor forum staff (https://forum.cursor.com/t/grok-bot-templates-preview-shows-skills-but-the-export-ships-skills-skills-are-never-delivered/169911/15).
• Gmail Spam check: Since 0.68.1 a Bot can search your Spam folder and move mail back. Have it list likely real messages before it moves anything. Credit: Grok Bot changelog (https://x.ai/changelog/bot#v0.68.1).

Grok BotThe digest#

The same red error now means two different things. Staff said this morning that the capacity problem behind Thursday's Bot failed to respond errors cleared at about 5 PM ET, and a regional failure reported from Hong Kong got a fix Thursday evening, UTC. Separately, staff traced one user's silent Bot to a safety filter flagging "sensitive security content" in its history. The tell is scope. If every Bot fails, check status.cursor.com. If one Bot fails, start fresh in another Bot, and don't ask it to read the blocked chat. A Reset fixes neither.

Routines are the open problem. Staff explained late Thursday that a run that fires early is the previous slot's run going out late, that a backup routine "waits in the same queue as the primary," and that manual runs "aren't held back the way scheduled ones are." One user said his scheduled runs worked this morning, but staff haven't posted an all-clear. Watch forum topic 174125 for it.

The HTTPS-only block on the Bot's computer is in its ninth day, and staff reaffirmed Thursday evening that only port 443 lets traffic out. Several users said it started for them after their computers were restored or reset on Oct 8. On our own Bot's computer this morning, hostnames resolved to a placeholder address and ports 22 and 587 timed out. Connecting to the real IP, looked up over HTTPS, reached Gmail's mail server and GitHub's SSH server. That's our workaround, not staff's, and it may not last.

Canvas drew a flood of questions overnight. A post praising a canvas feature by Stepan Goncharov, whose X bio places him at SpaceXAI, drew many replies, but it has since been deleted, so we can't link or quote it. Users replied asking their Bot to "present current updates for me via canvas," and @bot's automated reply said the Bot would "present the current updates for you via canvas." Another user asked "Canvas? What is it??" and said they'd never seen it in Grok Bot. It isn't in the changelog or Cursor's help center, so treat it as unconfirmed. Watch for a changelog line.

Elon Musk posted "Automatically used by Grok @Bot" over the launch of Grok Imagine's Video 1.5 Lite in the API, priced from $0.02 a second at 480p. That suggests a Bot that makes video may use it, in line with Wednesday's model routing news. Cursor's models help page doesn't mention video, and nobody has said what it costs you per clip.

A user says Grok Bot signed him up for a recurring meal prep subscription instead of the one-off order he asked for, costing him £57 extra. He invoked Musk's August promise, "If Grok Bot messes up, we will make you whole," and Musk replied "Sure." How claims work isn't documented. Before a Bot buys anything, ask it to show you the checkout page and say whether the charge repeats, and set approvals as in our approvals guide.

Rumor: Nima Owji, an independent app researcher, posted screenshots he says show X preparing an "X Subscription" that bundles X perks, Grok (including Grok Bot), and Cursor, with "ONE usage pool" across all three. SpaceXAI hasn't confirmed it, and we couldn't verify the screenshots. Watch for an official plan page.

Also on Thursday, SpaceXAI became a founding patron of the Omacom Foundation with $1.5 million in Grok tokens for the Omarchy Linux project, and Lauren Tan asked Grok Bot users on Omarchy for feedback.

Two known issues from earlier this week are still open. The desktop details pane still doesn't show a Bot's Instructions, which staff said "didn't make it into the new layout." A user asked on Oct 8 whether instructions are going away, and staff haven't answered. On Linux and Windows, the chat pane can go black after you switch chats, and staff said "Ctrl+A, scrolling, or switching chats" redraws it.

Computers stuck on "Starting desktop" were fixed on Oct 5. The status page also listed an incident "affecting Grok Bot's computers in certain regions" from 11:59 AM to 1:25 PM ET on Oct 7, and staff brought another stuck computer back on Thursday. Today, staff told one user whose computer "went to sleep this morning and didn't wake back up" that Recover "is safe to run here, and it's the right fix," and not to use Reset.

We also updated our webhook routine tip. Staff said the webhook URL, key, and header show only in the desktop app, from the chip on the "Created routine" line in the chat, and that the phone apps don't show them yet.

Update, Oct 9: Stepan Goncharov's canvas post was deleted after this issue went out. We removed its quote and link and now cite live replies instead.