Tell your digest what to say when there's nothing to report
A digest routine has two kinds of quiet days. On one, nothing happened. On the other, the routine broke. If your Bot posts nothing on both, you can't tell them apart.
Fix it with one sentence in the routine's instruction: tell the Bot exactly what to post when it finds nothing. For example, "If there are no new items, post one line: Nothing new since last run." An empty run should then leave a mark in chat. If an expected report is missing, check whether the routine ran; silence alone does not prove a failure.
To add it to a routine you already have, click the Bot's name at the top of the chat, open the routine under Routines and choose Edit. Grok Bot starts a message beginning "Edit your routine:" with the routine name. Add your empty-run line and send it. Then open the routine again and read the Instruction to make sure the line is there.
A few lines that work well:
- "If nothing new came in, say so in one line and stop."
- "If you can't reach the source, tell me which one in one line."
- "If the source was checked successfully and the list is empty, post the date and the word Clear."
Keep the empty-run reply short. The point is a quick sign of life, not a full report on nothing.
If a digest still goes quiet, check the routine itself. On the phone, Run history shows each recent run as Running, Succeeded or Failed, and a failed run shows its reason. On desktop, open the routine and choose Test if it is available. A test does real work, so use safe input on a digest that only reads. If Test is missing, ask the Bot to do the same read-only work once in chat and check the next scheduled run.
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