Does Grok Bot keep working after you lock the phone?

Yes. A Grok Bot keeps working after you lock the phone, because the work is on a cloud computer, not on the handset. The Grok Bot FAQ says closing the app, the laptop, or the phone does not stop a background turn or a routine. The docs do not use the word “lock” as its own mode. A lock screen is the phone staying on while you are not looking at the app. That is the same split the FAQ is describing: the phone is how you message the Bot, and the computer that clicks, reads files, and runs commands is elsewhere.

Grok Bot is the product xAI documents at docs.x.ai and announced as teammates with a persistent cloud computer. It is not the Telegram account @grok or a chat window named Grok. Those are different products. The Bot’s computer has a browser, a filesystem, and a terminal. The computers run in Cursor’s cloud. Your Bots on one account share that computer. Locking an iPhone, iPad, or Android phone does not suspend that machine.

What, exactly, continues while the screen is dark?

A background turn that has already started, and a routine that comes due. The overview says work continues while your laptop is closed. The computer-and-apps page says you can leave the preview while work continues, and that closing the Grok Bot app or the laptop does not stop cloud work. The FAQ adds the phone to that list. A routine is the scheduled or event-triggered run owned by one Bot. If it is set for a time when your phone is in a pocket, the schedule does not wait for you to unlock.

Each Bot gets its own screen on the shared computer. Several Bots can use the browser and desktop tools in parallel. One Bot runs only one computer-use task on its screen at a time. Locking the phone does not freeze those screens. It also does not give a Bot a second screen. If a Bot is mid-click in a browser, that task keeps the screen until it finishes or hits something it cannot pass. The next computer-use task for that same Bot waits its turn on that screen, whether or not you are watching.

The preview in the app is a view, not the work. You can walk away from it. When you unlock later, you are catching up with a computer that did not pause for the lock screen. If the app was force-quit rather than merely locked, the FAQ still says closing the app does not stop a background turn or a routine. I would not describe that as “the phone keeps a process alive in the background.” The phone can be fully closed. The cloud computer is the process.

What still waits for you, even though the phone is irrelevant to the CPU?

Anything the Bot is not allowed to finish alone. The product comes back when something needs approval. Drafts are described as things you approve before they are sent. Auto Review can let an action proceed, require approval, or deny it. With Auto Review on, you add rules under Settings, then General, then Auto-review. Ask-first rules always stop a matching action. Allow-automatically rules proceed only when the review does not find another reason to stop. If both match, ask-first wins.

A locked phone does not tap Approve for you. A turn that reaches an ask-first rule, a local-computer prompt, or a site that wants a human sits there until a person answers. The cloud computer is up. That step is not. The docs name the human steps a browser still hands back: a password or passkey, two-factor authentication, a CAPTCHA, a payment or identity check, or a site that explicitly requires a human. The Bot can show a form in the chat, one step at a time, and fill your answers into the page. It does not get those answers from a lock screen. You unlock, you type, it continues. I am not going to list ways to skip those checks. They are the point of the pause.

Your own computer is a separate switch. The cloud computer does not become your laptop because the phone locked, and the laptop does not become the cloud computer because the phone unlocked. In Settings, execution on the local computer defaults to ask every time, with always allow and never allow as the other choices. Once computers are registered, each machine has its own setting. A team policy can be stricter than yours. Those settings do not stop the Bot from using its cloud computer. So a locked phone plus a laptop that is asleep can still leave cloud work running, and it will not magically type on the sleeping laptop. Local commands wait for the policy and for that machine.

Does the phone you locked have to be the one you started on?

No. The same Bots and conversations sync across signed-in devices. The desktop app runs on macOS, including Apple silicon and Intel, on Windows x64 and Arm64, and on Linux x64 and Arm64. The mobile app, in the current docs.x.ai overview and FAQ, runs on iPhone, iPad, and Android. You can start a task on the phone, lock it, and read the result later on a desktop, or the other way around. The thread is the account’s, not the glass you locked.

The launch post was narrower. It said desktop and iOS, for SuperGrok tiers and specific Cursor plans. The docs page now includes Android, Windows, Linux, and iPad, and it says access is included with every paid individual Cursor plan and the Cursor Teams plan, or by linking an individual SuperGrok, SuperGrok Plus, or SuperGrok Heavy subscription. Usage resets weekly. If those two pages disagree on your account, the in-app plan screen is the one that knows what you pay for. I am not going to invent a price or a button that neither page showed me.

What the phone lock does change is notifications and approvals you meant to tap. A routine can finish and leave a draft. If your lock-screen notification settings swallow that, the work is done and you have not seen it. That is a phone setting, not the Bot stopping. When you open the app, the conversation should have the update the FAQ says a background turn is allowed to produce, including the case where it stopped because it needs you.

What does not keep running just because the cloud computer is up?

A site can block automation, expire a session, or demand a human step. The FAQ says the Bot hands those back rather than working around them. A locked phone makes the hand-back sit longer. It does not cause the Bot to invent a bypass. Browser sessions persist on the shared computer, so a login you already completed is usually still there for the next task, and it is there for every Bot on the account, not only the one you were watching. Locking the phone does not log that browser out. It also does not make the session private to one Bot.

Connectors are the structured path into supported apps, installed as plugins from Marketplace. Computer use is the path for everything else. Both run on the cloud computer. Neither needs the phone unlocked to keep a turn going. Both still stop at the approval and human-step rules above. If Marketplace authentication itself opens a browser prompt, that prompt is a human step. Starting a brand-new connector while the phone is locked is a bad plan. A connector you already added can be used by a routine that fires later.

There is a recovery path if the cloud computer itself is unreachable. The docs call it Recover computer, offered from the error state, not as a normal settings toggle, and they also mention Grok Bot computer controls under Settings, then Updates, for maintenance. A locked phone cannot press Recover. If the cloud computer is the thing that is down, locking or unlocking the phone does not fix it. That is the outage case, and it is the opposite of the normal lock-screen case, where the computer is fine and the phone is merely dark.

What should you leave human before you lock it?

Leave sending, paying, deleting, and signing in as things you expect to tap. The skills-and-routines docs tell you to require approval for sending, purchasing, deleting, publishing, or changing production systems. A lock screen is a good test of whether you actually set that. Start a routine you believe is safe to run unattended, lock the phone, and see whether the morning result is a draft or a sent message. If it sent, that was the rule you configured, not the lock button. Change the rule if a sent message was not what you wanted. Do not “fix” it by leaving the phone unlocked on a desk.

Leave the local computer on ask-every-time unless a specific Bot has a reason to touch files on the machine in front of you. The cloud computer will keep working either way. Always-allow on the laptop is a different, larger grant, and it is not required for a Bot to work while the phone is locked.

Leave one honest expectation. Grok Bot’s cloud computer keeps a background turn and a routine going when the phone locks, the app closes, or the laptop shuts. It does not tap approvals, type passwords, or pass a site that insists on a person. Those wait. The phone is the remote. The computer in Cursor’s cloud is the worker. Locking the remote does not send the worker home.