Everyone creates twelve bots and ends up talking to all twelve. That is not a team, that is twelve more inboxes. You are hiring a chief of staff. This is how I set mine up.
I am a doctor. I run a marketing agency on the side, and I have generated millions of dollars for cash-pay clinics run by people who are brilliant at medicine and were never once taught business. I am not an engineer. I say that because everything below is written for someone who already has a job.
Here is what I keep seeing with agents. Someone gets access, creates twelve of them in an afternoon, names them after departments, and by Friday they are talking to all twelve. That is not a team. That is twelve more inboxes, and it is slower than doing the work yourself.
The problem was never the model. It was the org chart. So stop thinking about it as ChatGPT with plugins and start thinking about it as hiring. You hire a chief of staff. The chief of staff hires the specialists. You only ever talk to the chief of staff. Nothing customer facing ships without your yes.
That is the model I actually run, and this is the setup order I use, day 0 through day 30. It is the same thing I do inside my own agency before any agent touches a client account.
Twelve chat windows, all of them yours to babysit, and you re-explain the business to each one every single time.
One chief of staff with the minimum connector stack and two routines, briefing you every morning and holding every send until you say yes.
Two to four operators reporting into that CoS, a room where a builder and a critic iterate without you, and a visible proof log of what the system finished overnight.
ChatGPT with plugins.
Hire a chief of staff. They hire the specialists. You talk to one person. Live changes need your yes.
| Role | Talks to you | Job |
|---|---|---|
| Chief of Staff | Yes, your only chat | Prioritise, brief, route, gate live writes |
| Operators | No, unless you open them | One named job each, so ads, content, cash, delivery |
| Rooms and Labs | Optional | Specialists iterate together, escalate decisions only |
Install the desktop app, open Settings from the account button bottom left or Cmd+comma, and sign in on the General tab. Set your timezone to where you actually live, because every routine you write from here runs on it.
The bot has its own computer for files, browser logins and long work. When it gets stuck, Update Computer first, which keeps your files and logins. Reset Computer is the last resort and can lose recent unsynced work.
Create or rename one agent as your only executive and give it a real name. Cmd+Shift+I opens its pane, so computer preview, routines, channels and settings. Then write a description that locks the rules: you talk only to this agent, it routes work to specialists, live writes stay approval-gated, and separate businesses stay isolated.
A morning digest on weekdays around 7am covering overnight Slack, email, calendar and open loops. An evening capture around 6pm that turns meetings into a brief with your checklist and content seeds. Write them as intent, not as click paths, because intent survives a UI change.
Each phase has a done-when. If you have not hit it, do not start the next one. Every failure I have seen came from skipping ahead.
Paste these as written. They are short on purpose, because the long ones drift.
You are my chief of staff. I only talk to you. Route work to specialists. Live writes, so sends, publishes, ad pauses and CRM changes, stay approval-gated until I say an exact yes. Give me short briefs, act-now first. Do not invent metrics.
Weekdays 7am my timezone. Overnight Slack and email needing a reply, today's calendar, open loops from yesterday's call brief. Lead with what needs me. Quiet nights get one line.
Weekdays 6pm. Pull today's meetings, save the notes, and write a one pager with an overview, my checklist only, handoffs for operators, and three to five content seeds. Send me the path and the top actions.
Watch our ad accounts. Recommend scale, hold, refresh or kill, with the evidence. Never change a budget without my exact yes. Remix winners before inventing new creative.
Every one of these has happened to me or to someone I set this up for.
| Failure | Fix |
|---|---|
| Twelve agents and you talk to all of them | Collapse to one CoS |
| Transcripts saved, no checklist | Add the evening brief and a morning open-loops item |
| The ads bot has write access | Recommendations only until an exact yes |
| The builder sends you every screenshot | Put it in a room, escalate scores only |
| Numbers with no CRM access | Report access red, fix the token |
| Routines firing at 3am | Bound them to weekdays and waking hours |
| Two companies in one vault | Separate the credentials and campaigns, hard |
It runs the whole arc, day 0 setup through the 14 day onboarding, and it holds the two gates that make this work: you talk to one agent, and no operator gets hired until the same job has drowned the chief of staff twice. Every phase ends with a done-when you have to actually hit.
--- name: grok-bot-setup description: Stands up a Grok Bot team on the chief-of-staff model, one executive you talk to and specialists who report in, with every live write approval-gated. Walks day 0 setup, then a 14 day onboarding that refuses to add operators until the same job has drowned the CoS twice. Trigger on "set up my grok bot", "build my bot team", "who should my first agent be", "my agents are chaos". --- # Grok Bot Setup Most people set this up backwards. They create twelve agents in an afternoon, name them after departments, and end up talking to all twelve. That is not a team, that is twelve more inboxes. You are hiring a chief of staff. The CoS hires the specialists. You only ever talk to the CoS. Live changes need your yes. That is the whole model, and everything below is just putting it in the right order. ## The mental model Wrong: ChatGPT with plugins. Right: hire a chief of staff, they hire specialists, you talk to one person, and nothing customer facing ships without your exact yes. | Role | Talks to you | Job | | --- | --- | --- | | Chief of Staff | Yes, your only chat | Prioritise, brief, route, gate live writes | | Operators | No, unless you open them | One named job each | | Rooms and Labs | Optional | Specialists iterate together, escalate decisions only | ## Day 0: setup **Install and sign in.** Install the desktop app. Open Settings from the account button bottom left, or Cmd+comma, or the command palette. Sign in on the General tab. Set your timezone to where you actually live, because routines run on it. Theme, language and notification sound are optional. **The computer.** The bot has its own computer for files, browser logins and long work. If it gets stuck, use Update Computer first, which keeps your files and logins. Reset Computer is the last resort and can lose recent unsynced work. **Create the Chief of Staff.** Create or rename one agent as your only executive. Give it a real name. Open the per-agent pane with Cmd+Shift+I to reach its computer preview, routines, channels and settings. Write a description that locks the rules. It must say: you talk only to this agent, it routes work to specialists, live writes stay approval-gated, and separate businesses stay isolated from each other. **Connect the minimum stack.** Only what you will use this week. | Need | Connector | | --- | --- | | Comms | Slack, Gmail | | Time | Google Calendar | | Notes and tasks | Notion or Monday | | Calls | Fathom or similar meeting capture | | Money, later | Stripe | | Ads, later | Meta or Google | Prefer the official connector over "open the website and log in". Authenticate once and the CoS can read and draft safely after that. **Save two routines. Two, not eight.** 1. Morning digest, weekdays around 7am local. Overnight Slack, email, calendar, open loops from yesterday's calls. 2. Evening capture, weekdays around 6pm. Meetings become a brief with an overview, your checklist, and content seeds. Write routine prompts as intent, not as tool recipes. "Pull overnight Slack and email, lead with what needs me" survives a UI change. A ten step click path does not. ## Days 1 to 2: one CoS, nothing else - Sign in, set timezone, save the morning digest - Connect Slack, Gmail, Calendar - Tell it: brief me every weekday morning, send nothing without my yes - Paste your north star once, so revenue target, offer and ICP **Done when:** you get one short morning brief you actually read. ## Days 3 to 5: shared workspace and a proof log - Create a shared folder the agents can write to - Have the CoS log completed work somewhere you can see it - Turn the evening meeting dump into your action checklist, not an archive **Done when:** after a call you see three checkboxes that are yours, not a twenty page transcript. ## Days 6 to 10: two to four operators, not ten Hire a specialist only when the CoS has drowned in the same job twice. Not once. Twice. | Operator | One job | | --- | --- | | Delivery | Booked appointments, reply gaps, client health | | Ads | Watch accounts, recommend scale, hold or kill, never touch budget | | Content | Scripts, hooks, repurposing, drafts only | | Finance | Cash collected against ad spend, weekly scoreboard | The rules that stop this becoming chaos: you still talk only to the CoS, operators produce drafts and recommendations until you say yes, one job per operator, and separate brands never share credentials or campaigns. **Done when:** the CoS routes "check Meta" to Ads and brings you a five line recommendation instead of a login link. ## Days 11 to 14: rooms and quality gates - Create a room for build and review loops, so a builder and a critic iterate without pinging you on every screenshot - Escalate to the CoS only for decisions, so publishing, spending, credentials, sends - Optional: ingest your playbooks once, and have the CoS brief each operator on their slice only **Done when:** you get scores and a "no go until X" instead of raw output. ## Operating principles 1. One executive. You talk to the CoS, everyone else reports in. 2. Approval-gated live writes. Drafts are free. Sends, publishes, spends and CRM changes need an exact yes. 3. One job per operator. Split only when the same job drowns someone twice. 4. Routines beat memory. If it recurs, make it a routine. 5. Briefs beat archives. Storage without a checklist is how work dies. 6. Rooms for iteration, CoS for decisions. 7. Never invent metrics. If access is broken, say access red and stop. 8. No secrets or patient information in chat dumps. Mask tokens. 9. Connectors over screenshots for anything structured. 10. Start smaller than you want. Two routines and one CoS beats eight idle agents. ## Starter prompts **To the new CoS** > You are my chief of staff. I only talk to you. Route work to specialists. Live writes, > so sends, publishes, ad pauses and CRM changes, stay approval-gated until I say an > exact yes. Give me short briefs, act-now first. Do not invent metrics. **Morning digest** > Weekdays 7am my timezone. Overnight Slack and email needing a reply, today's calendar, > open loops from yesterday's call brief. Lead with what needs me. Quiet nights get one > line. **Evening meetings** > Weekdays 6pm. Pull today's meetings, save the notes, and write a one pager with an > overview, my checklist only, handoffs for operators, and three to five content seeds. > Send me the path and the top actions. **Ads operator** > Watch our ad accounts. Recommend scale, hold, refresh or kill, with the evidence. > Never change a budget without my exact yes. Remix winners before inventing new > creative. ## Failure modes | Failure | Fix | | --- | --- | | Twelve agents and you talk to all of them | Collapse to one CoS | | Transcripts saved, no checklist | Add the evening brief and a morning open-loops item | | The ads bot has write access | Recommendations only until an exact yes | | The builder sends you every screenshot | Put it in a room, escalate scores only | | Numbers with no CRM access | Report access red, fix the token | | Routines firing at 3am | Bound them to weekdays and waking hours | | Two companies in one vault | Separate the credentials and campaigns, hard | ## What done looks like at 30 days You open one chat most mornings. The digests are short and act-now heavy. Specialists exist only for the jobs that actually repeated. Nothing customer facing ships without your yes. There is a visible log of what the system completed. And at least one room keeps the polish loops off your plate.
This is the operating model I run across the agency and the clinics, chief of staff on top, operators underneath, every live write gated. Come build yours live inside the AI CEO Lab.
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