Test before you enable (a test run is real)

Before a routine goes live, Grok Bot gives you a Test run — and there is one thing you must understand about it, because the docs put it in bold for a reason: "A test run performs real work. It can navigate websites, change files, and call connected tools."

A test run is not a dry run or a simulation. If your routine posts a message, a test run can post it for real. If it edits a file, the file really changes. If it hits an external tool, the tool really runs. People assume "test" means "pretend," get surprised when a test sends a live Slack message, and learn this the embarrassing way. So treat a test run exactly like a real run: use safe inputs, point it at a copy or a staging target, and keep every write action behind approval while you're testing.

Used correctly, the test run is where you confirm the routine actually behaves. The docs give a good review checklist — run through it after creating or editing any routine:

• Did it select the current inputs (today's data, the right account), not something stale?
• Does the output match the format you asked for?
• Does every action have a source or an audit trail — can you see why it did what it did?
• Did it stop at the intended approval point instead of barreling through?
• Are its failure states explicit — does it say clearly when something went wrong?

If any of those is "no," fix the instructions and test again before you enable it. A routine that passes this checklist on a safe target is one you can trust on a timer.

Two more facts about managing routines that bite if you don't know them. First, deleting a routine is immediate and has no undo. There's no trash, no restore — gone is gone, so be sure before you delete. Second, deleting a Bot also removes the routines it owns. If you clean up a Bot you no longer need, its routines vanish with it — which is usually what you want, but not if one of them was quietly doing something important.

One last habit from the docs that connects back to Module 2's "re-test after things change": when a website, connector, or data format a routine depends on changes, pause the routine and re-run the test before trusting it again. The world a routine reads from drifts, and a test run is how you catch the drift before it ships bad output on your behalf.