AI Tools Field Guide

Open edition · no CAC needed

Intermediate — How it works, just enough

Grok: skills, projects and automations

Lesson 14 of 17≈7 min

Grok bundles three features in one place: a skill that writes a Word, PowerPoint, Excel or PDF file, a project that holds a job, and a prompt that runs on a schedule. ChatGPT now has its own versions (skills inside plugins, and Scheduled), so the method here carries over, set up below with what each one costs in time and attention.

Skills: a playbook the model follows

The Skills page in Grok with a New Skill button and six Personal skills: Word Documents (create, read and edit .docx), FFmpeg (video and audio), PDFs (create, merge, split and extract), Presentations (create, read and edit .pptx), Skill Creator (build new custom skills through conversation) and Spreadsheets (.xlsx and .csv).
The Skills page: six built in (Word Documents, FFmpeg, PDFs, Presentations, Skill Creator, Spreadsheets) and New Skill.

Screenshot by the author on a sandbox account, 16 September 2026.

Think of a skill as a reusable playbook: instructions, and sometimes tools, you attach so Grok applies the same expertise without re-pasting a long prompt. The mental model is a specialty SOP, not a full workspace (Grok). The built-in ones are the interesting part, because four of them write files.

The plus menu under the Grok chat box: Upload a file, Recent, Project and Skills.
The plus menu in a chat: Upload a file, Recent, Project, Skills. Pick Skills to attach one to this chat.

Screenshot by the author on a sandbox account, 16 September 2026.

Grok's plus menu with the Skills submenu open: Upload a file, Add to project, Recent files, Skills and Add connector; the Skills list offers docx, pdf, pptx and xlsx, then Create skill and Manage Skills.
The same menu on the public app in September 2026: Upload a file, Add to project, Recent files, Skills and Add connector. Skills opens docx, pdf, pptx and xlsx, then Create skill and Manage Skills.

Screenshot by the author, 25 September 2026.

Grok working on a request to build a three-slide PowerPoint with the Presentations skill: the progress lines read Loaded 2 skills, Connected to computer, Running command List pptx skill directory contents, and Working for 11m 34s.
A file job in progress: Loaded 2 skills, Connected to computer, running commands. Ours passed eleven minutes and then twenty-five.

Screenshot by the author on a sandbox account, 16 September 2026.

What to expect: a file job runs for minutes, sometimes many; a Quick Answer button offers to bail out with text instead; and the file that comes back is a starting point in a plain layout, not your command's template. Ask for the words and structure in text when you can, and use the file skills when someone needs a .docx or .xlsx to start from.

New Skill offers three routes: write the skill file yourself, upload one, or "Create skill with Grok" by describing it. Write a skill like a good prompt: role, goal, limits, format. The Advanced path's skills files lesson is the same idea in general form.

Projects: a desk for a job

The Projects page in Grok with a Create project button and three cards: Create and Customize (create projects, add files and set instructions), Contextual AI (Grok answers using your project files and instructions automatically) and Team Collaboration (share projects with others while keeping every conversation private).
Projects: Create and Customize, Contextual AI, Team Collaboration.

Screenshot by the author on a sandbox account, 16 September 2026.

The Share Project dialog in Grok: a search box for people or teams with an Invite button, the note not shared with anyone yet, General Access set to Only people invited, and a Copy Link option.
Share Project: an invite box and a general-access setting. On 17 Sep 2026 searching for a person returned no results, so treat sharing as something still to arrive.

Screenshot by the author on a sandbox account, 16 September 2026.

A new Grok project named Project 1: a chat box on the left, and on the right the project's settings: Instructions to customize Grok's responses, Your Automations to schedule recurring tasks that run in this project, and Files for Grok to use in this project, with a drop zone.
A new project's settings: Instructions, Your Automations for recurring tasks inside the project, and Files.

Screenshot by the author, 25 September 2026.

Create project asks for a name and files. Inside, Grok defaults to Expert mode and answers from the project's files and instructions automatically. Grok shows a share dialog that ChatGPT does not offer for its projects, with each person's chats inside a shared project staying private. We could not complete an invite in September 2026, so build the project for yourself and hand over the files and instructions until sharing works reliably for you. Good uses: recurring staff summaries, recurring analysis, unit SOP questions. A one-off question belongs in a plain chat.

Automations: a prompt on a timer

The Automations page in Grok: a New Automation button, tabs for Automations and Runs, and template cards grouped under News, Productivity and Research, such as Morning Brief daily at 7:30 AM, Weekly Review on Fridays at 4:00 PM, Task Extractor daily at 5:00 PM and Paper Watch on Wednesdays at 9:00 AM.
Automations: New Automation, a Runs tab, and template cards with their schedules.

Screenshot by the author on a sandbox account, 16 September 2026.

The New Automation dialog in Grok: a name field, a Triggers section with Add Trigger, an Instructions box, counters for Connectors and Skills, the Auto mode selector, a Notification setting of App only, and Cancel and Save buttons.
New Automation: name, Add Trigger, Instructions, Connectors and Skills counters, mode, Notification (App only).

Screenshot by the author on a sandbox account, 16 September 2026.

  1. New Automation
  2. Name it and write the instructions as if nobody will be there to answer questions
  3. Add Trigger: once, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly
  4. Attach files or a project it should read
  5. Save, then Run now
  6. Read the run under Runs

Two facts set the limits. Triggers are time-based only; email triggers shown locked in the menu were not yet available when we tested this. And an automation reads only what is attached or in its project, so "summarize this week's traffic" works only if the traffic is already there. Every run is a real conversation kept under the same rules, and Grok chat history is deleted after 30 days.

Vendor facts checked ; re-verify before relying on them.