GrokBot Limits

The bot’s weekly meter is not the coding meter. Install the CLIs you already pay for on the shared VM, let herdr run them, and Grok Bot only burns tokens on the prompt that started the job.

GrokBot TOC · ← AI Agents · Productivity · GrokBot overview · GrokBot tips · Field manual · GrokBot team · Codex Fast vs Medium

Source

Aaron Makelky (@theaaron) — x.com/theaaron/status/2093862565407494375 (30 Aug 2026). “i love @grok @bot / i do not love its rate limits.” ~1.5k bookmarks / ~94k views at capture. ~2 min 15s walkthrough.

install your coding agents on Grok Bot’s virtual machine — Codex, Cursor, Grok Build, Antigravity, etc — then install @herdrdev to manage those CLI agent sessions. now give Grok Bot a rule: use Herdr + CLI agents for anything more than conversational tasks. your rate limits for Grok Bot will only be coordination and prompting, rather than the coding tasks themselves.

Follow-up on the same thread: credit @jethrojones for teaching him herdr. Official @grok reply: Grok Bot’s usage pool is separate from Grok / Cursor; the persistent cloud computer is meant for installs and handoffs like this.

Same pattern as John Ennis on /grokbottips (Ghostty → CLIs → herdr → lantern) and the field manual’s “quota furnace / spread heavy work across Grok Bot, Grok Build, and Cursor.” This video is the screen-share of that rule.

Video

Open the tweet / watch on X →

One-sentence TL;DR

Grok Bot is the coordinator on a Linux VM; the coding agents you already subscribe to do the jobs; herdr watches the panes; only the coordination chat hits the Grok Bot weekly meter.

What he actually showed

The bill. 64% of weekly Grok Bot usage gone by day two if the bot itself codes, reads repos, and writes files. You cannot run a real desk that way.
The VM is a Linux box with a terminal. Same mental model as the field manual: one shared cloud computer, screens ≠ security boundaries. Because it has a shell, you can install Cursor CLI, Grok Build, Codex, Google Antigravity — whatever you already have a sub for.
Those CLIs bill their own meters. Same Grok 4.6, but Cursor CLI burns Cursor; Codex burns Codex. Grok Bot only pays for “open the terminal and run this.”
herdr is the overwatch. Multiple CLI sessions in panes on the bot’s VM, not on his laptop. Screenshot: four workspaces — Codex, Grok, Antigravity — herded by the bot, reporting back.
The rule. Anything more than a conversation: herdr + CLI. Push to GitHub. Grok Bot stays in the loop as the person you message.

How this maps here

This video	Our notes
64% gone in two days	Field manual: operators burn a 7-day trial in ~2 days. Same furnace.
Install CLIs on the bot VM	Ennis: don’t use Grok Bot as the compiler. herdr + lantern.
herdr on the cloud computer	Ennis ran it locally in Ghostty first. Aaron’s version is herdr inside the bot VM so the bot can drive it.
Grok Bot = coordination only	CEO inbox routes; specialists (here: CLIs) do the work.
Separate meters	Grok Bot ≠ Grok Build ≠ Cursor. Official @grok reply confirms the split.
/workspace survival	Field manual: only `/workspace` is forever. Reinstall CLIs after a wipe; keep durable files in `/workspace`.

What we keep vs skip

Keep: the split-meter rule, herdr on the bot VM, “conversation vs job” instruction in the Bot description, GitHub as the handoff.
Verify: which CLIs you actually have a sub for. Don’t install four. One coding CLI + herdr is enough to test the furnace.
Skip: treating this as unlimited Grok Bot. You still pay Cursor / Codex / Build. You still need Require Approval on send/publish. The VM is still one computer — a sketchy CLI is one hop from your logins.

Related on this site

GrokBot tips — Ennis herdr + lantern; Auto-review
GrokBot field manual — quota furnace, /workspace, screens ≠ security
GrokBot team (Lauren Tan) — unlimited-token lab vs this meter trick
GrokBot CEO — coordinator vs specialists
Codex Fast vs Medium — the other usage knob
GrokBot vs Hermes — keep the coding CLIs

Primary: @theaaron — rate limits walkthrough · herdr.dev · credit @jethrojones

Full transcript

ASR from the ~2-minute video. Speech artifacts preserved. “Herder” in the capture is herdr.

Grokbot is awesome, but the rate limits suck and there's no way you're doing real work if Grokbot itself handles all the jobs you give it because when you see 64% of your usage gone and you're only two days into the week like I was, you realize you just can't rely on it.

So here's a little trick that I found that's totally legit to help you save on your usage but still let you be in Grokbot for all your day-to-day work.

When you think about it, Grokbot runs on a virtual server, so it's a Linux device in the cloud somewhere.

When you pass it a task and say, hey do this for me, code this up, read this repo, it's going to use your rate limits.

But since it's on a Linux device that it can control, it has a terminal, a command line tool.

And if you have a command line tool, you can install coding agents like these.

So even the same model that Grokbot would be running, Grok 4.6, you can use cursor in the command line running the same model, but it takes away from your cursor rate limits, not Grokbot.

Same with Grokbuild or Codex or Google's antigravity.

Now you don't have to use all of those.

Any ones you have a sub for, you can basically say, hey Grokbot, here's what I want you to do.

On your little virtual private server, open your terminal, use this tool, do this coding task or even like these documents, and then just push it to github and use github diversion, whatever you're working on.

Another level to this, if you want it to be able to track all of those, you've probably heard of Herder, which is a way to manage multiple terminal sessions.

So if you have a bunch of agents running, it can herd them along and keep them moving and kind of overwatch those.

Well, what's really cool is you can give this agent management tool to your agent.

So here's a screenshot of Grokbot where it's running Herder on its own virtual machine.

That's not my computer, that's in the cloud somewhere.

And it has these four workspaces where it's doing one project here, but it's using Codex, Grok, antigravity, and it's managing all of those itself, reporting back to me.

And the best part is the only rate limits that are coming out of your Grokbot usage are from the prompting that it's doing, not the actual coding task.

End of transcript. Source: @theaaron (video)

Field notes · August 2026 · Coordination on Grok Bot · Jobs on the CLIs · @theaaron