Do it by hand, save a skill, then schedule

How this helps you

Proving a job works once before scheduling it means your routines fail far less often.

✦ Try it

That worked. Save what you just did as a skill: when to use it, what inputs and access it needs, the steps, how to check the result, and what needs my approval.

What they did

@Michael_Fenech_ says that if your routines keep failing, you might be automating them too early. His 6-step test: run the job manually first, fix the process until the result is consistent, save the working process as a skill, test it on different input, define what failure looks like (source unavailable, stale data, partial completion, approval needed, something unexpected), then use a Test run and check the run history. His summary: Task, Fix, Skill, Test, Routine. @Cyb3rCricket made the same point in a post that has since been deleted.

Who it's for: Anyone about to create their first routine.

How to try it

Run the real job once in chat, with real inputs.
Correct the Bot until the result is exactly what you want.
Run it a second time to check it works twice in a row.
Ask the Bot to save it as a skill (prompt below).
Create a routine that calls the skill, then use Test with safe inputs. Test does real work.

What to expect

A saved skill you can see in the / menu, and a routine that calls it.

Common mistakes

Scheduling a job that has never worked by hand.
Skipping Test because it does real work. Use a safe copy or a test channel instead.

Related tips

Keep routines one line long: The schedule says when. The skill says how.
Write the outcome, not the recipe: Describe what you want; pasted tool calls break by week two.
Teach a task by doing it once: Do the workflow while it watches; it records the steps.
Make your first task boring: Start with something checkable, then add one thing at a time.
A /clean-start skill for long chats: Save the goal, decisions, files and next action to a handoff file, then pick up in a fresh chat.
Give deep research a finish line: "Research this deeply" gives no finish line and no reason to stop browsing.
Keep skills in a GitHub repo and sync them to your Bots nightly: One-line routines call skills; the skills live in a repo you edit elsewhere, and a nightly routine pulls them onto the Bots' computer.
Plan every Bot job with four blocks: Corey Ganim runs 6 Bots and 14 weekly routines across 11 apps. Each job is built from the same four blocks: Bot, routine, skill and connector.
Make a write-like-me skill from your sent email: One sentence has a Bot read your sent email, find how you write, and save it as a skill every Bot uses when drafting for you.
Build a weekly research briefing Bot from scratch, then test run it: Create a research Bot with a clear role, check it understood, connect Gmail, save a report skill, and schedule it for Monday 9:00 a.m. Then press Test run instead of waiting a week.
Teach a task the smart way: describe it first, record only the gap: Most of a browser job can be explained in chat. Record a 20 to 60 second clip of only the part the Bot can't work out, then add anti-jobs before you schedule it.
Turn a repeated job into a script the skill runs: Do a weekly job once with your Bot, check it, then have it rewrite the job as a plain script and save a skill that runs the script and reports in two lines.