Tips for Working with Bots

Tips are practical one-pagers that pair with Guides. Each tip is a short lesson you can apply the same day, then come back to the full guide for the longer how-to.

All Tips

Surface Timely List Mail in Batches

Have the bot hand you a small checked batch of timely list signals. You decide whether to reach out. The bot never sends outreach on its own.

Log Every Mailing List Signal

When a prospect list sends news, a launch, a hire, or an event, log a short fielded note to the CRM or brain with a link back to the message.

Give the Bot Its Own Inbox

Subscribe and track prospect mail from a bot-owned mailbox, not your personal one, so consent, filters, and the audit trail stay clean.

Make Your Bot Cite the Record

Every line in a bot's CRM summary should link to the record it came from. No link, no line.

Run a Weekly Stale Deal Sweep

Write down what stale means, have the bot list every stale deal with owner and last activity, and let the owner decide what happens next.

Start Your CRM Bot Read-Only

Give a CRM bot its own read-only login, scoped to the objects the job needs, and add write access later one field at a time.

Keep a Markdown Copy of Your Brain

Keep the Markdown notes you load into GBrain in a folder you own, hosted or not, and back up the database too. If you move, start from that copy.

Read the Installer First

Before you pipe a curl install script into bash, for hosted GBrain or any bot tool, open it and read it. gbrain.io says so itself.

Price the Brain Before You Pick

Hosted GBrain is $199 a month with $100 of AI credit. Self-hosting is free software on a server you pay for. Do the math first.

Be the One Who Clicks Send

Let the bot draft and line it up, but anything going to a customer, vendor, or the public gets your eyes and your click. That is human in the loop.

Check the Second Run Too

Bots can do the same task differently the second time, so check every run, not just the first.

Start with a Batch of Ten

Don't ask a bot for 600 of anything. Ask for 10, check them, then grow the batch.

Ask for Proof, Not Just Done

Done is a claim. Ask the bot for the link, the count, or the passing check that shows the work landed.

Turn Every Correction Into a Written Rule

Fix the mistake today, then have the bot write the rule into its notes so it stays fixed.

Brief Your Bot With Goal, Context, and Done

Every real ask gets three parts: what you want, what the bot cannot guess, and how you will both know it is finished.

Log Every SEO Change the Bot Made

When the SEO bot edits a page, it logs the URL, what changed, and which Umami or Search Console signal triggered it. No silent rewrites.

Apply Safe On-Site SEO Fixes

Safe SEO fixes a bot can apply itself: titles that match the page, honest meta descriptions, internal links from hubs, sitemap and robots hygiene.

Pull Analytics Before You Diagnose

Before an SEO bot edits a title or meta description, it pulls last week's data from Umami and Google Search Console. Guessing is vibes.

Log Bugs with Repro Steps Not Vibes

Every bug the bot logs needs what you did, what you expected, what happened, and how to see it again in three steps or fewer. No vibes.

Keep a QA Checklist the Bot Must Run

Give the bot a short fixed QA checklist: happy path, empty input, bad input, permission denied, and one edge case. Pass or fail every line.

Write a Failing Case First

Before the bot codes or edits, have it write one concrete failing case in plain English. The case must fail first, then pass.

Shrink Scope Until Green

If a bot is flaky, cut its scope before adding more integrations or tools. A narrow job that works beats an ambitious one that fails.

Failure Review Twice a Week

For a new team bot's first two weeks, review its failures twice a week. Each repeat failure earns one new standing-rule line.

Run a Day-One Drill

On day one, run a thin bot job end to end while the team watches. Write down every nudge; those become the bot's instructions.

Log Fields, Not Blurbs

Require contact, date, channel, and next step on every bot-logged CRM activity. Reject vague blurbs nobody can report on.

Read the CRM Before Outreach

Have the bot open the contact record before it drafts outreach. If the record is missing or stale, it should ask you first.

One System of Record

Choose one system of record, like your CRM, for contacts and stages, and tell the bot that path in its standing rules so contacts don't fork.

Keep a Credits Section

Maintain a short credits list of the open source tools your bot stack relies on, kept beside the runbook and updated when dependencies change.

Check License Before Install

Before the bot adds a dependency, have it report the license and last release. A 30-second check skips mystery packages and later messes.

Pin Bot Dependencies

Pin versions for anything your bot installs or calls so runs stay repeatable, and keep the pin list where the bot reads its standing rules.

Keep an Error Log

Log the questions you miss in a simple file the study bot can reopen next session, and drill those items before new material.

Study from Your Sources

Feed the study bot the notes and materials you are actually assigned, not generic web guesses, and keep source titles next to each summary.

Quiz Before Answers

Have the study bot quiz you before it shows model answers. Learning sticks when you struggle a little first, then ask the bot to check.

No Portal Passwords in Chat

A family bot may remind you to check a school or bank portal, but it should not hold those passwords in chat. Keep logins human-operated.

Sunday Family Brief

Once a week, have the bot draft a short household brief. You edit the tone and anything private before it goes to the family channel.

One Shared Household List

Pick one shared household list for groceries and errands. Let the family bot add items and let humans remove them. One list beats five.

Track Hours Returned

Once a week, note the hours a bot gave back versus the hours you spent steering it. If steering wins, shrink the bot's scope.

Pair Each Bot with a Human

Put a named human next to every bot job in the runbook. When quality slips, that person updates the bot's instructions the same day.

List Chores Before Tools

Write the list of chores before you pick a bot product. If the chore list is empty, you do not need another bot yet.

Publish a Weekly Scorecard

Once a week, publish a short bot bake-off scorecard under News that links the task, the bots, and the scores, so the pattern compounds.

Score Accuracy and Steering

Track how often you nudged the bot next to accuracy on your scorecard. A pretty answer that needed six nudges loses to a plain one that shipped.

Same Prompt for Both Bots

Fair bot bake-offs start with a frozen prompt: write it once and feed it to both bots unedited. If you must clarify, add it to both and re-run.

Rotate a Human Owner

Rotate a weekly human owner for each team bot so it is never orphaned, and have that person update standing rules after repeat failures.

One Status Channel Per Bot

Give each team bot one home channel for status and failures. When alerts scatter across DMs, the outage hides from the team.

Name the Bot by Role

Name team bots by job, like intake, research, or billing-check, not cute nicknames, and use the same role title in the runbook.

Write a Resume Brief

Close a long bot session with a resume brief, not a goodbye: list the next three actions and any secrets the bot must not invent.

Checkpoint Notes Every Slice

After each slice of a long bot job, save a short status note with done, next, and blockers, under a boring filename so the next run can resume.

Define Done Before the Bot Starts

Write one finish-line paragraph before a long bot job: what done looks like, output paths, and a hard stop. Point the bot at it every run.

Save the Receipt Path

After you buy, save the confirmation into a known folder with a clear name and tell the bot that path, so returns and warranties are easy.

Bots Research, You Approve

Split research rights from spend rights: the bot reads and compares, you keep payment and account changes. Put the split in standing rules.

Write a Buy Brief Before Checkout

Before any checkout, have the bot write a buy brief: purpose, budget, three options, return window, and a recommendation. Incomplete? Don't buy.

Correct Bad Names the Same Day

Rename bad bot names immediately, log the bad example, and keep one canonical path.

One Pattern Per Object Type

Give folders, files, tickets, and CRM records each one naming pattern, then leave it alone for 30 days.

Write the Naming Convention Down

Put the naming rule in one file the bot can read every run, then link it from your guides hub.