2026-08-28 · Guide
Storyboard With Grok Imagine Without Dumping Unreviewed Shots Anywhere Public
A shareable link is how unreviewed Imagine stills leave the building. Tamsin learned that on 19 August 2026, when eight teaser frames for a collapsible travel kettle (SKU RK-12, an arbitrary example) landed in a Drive folder that still carried a public link from a prior client gallery. Scene 03 still had a $49 overlay the kettle does not sell at. The founder posted that still to X at 18:12. Legal saw it at 18:40. The grok imagine storyboard had done the helpful thing: it put the frames where a phone could swipe.
This page is the opposite arrangement. The bot writes a shot list into /workspace. You confirm Grok Imagine is live on xAI. You click Generate. Files stay in a private folder until a human releases them. The bot never posts, never uploads to YouTube Studio, never mails a client a still, and never "just shares one frame."
Primer: what a Grok Bot is. The catalog listing is Grok Imagine Storyboard. The stop matches Inbox Triage: drafts wait. This is not the YouTube manager that never publishes. That page is listing copy for cuts you already have. This page is a storyboard for stills that do not exist until you generate them.
Confirm Grok Imagine is live on xAI before you treat it as a generation surface
Grok Imagine is an xAI image surface. Confirm it on xAI's current product pages the day you run, including whether it is on the account you will actually use. This article does not assert that Imagine is on every plan, does not print a price, and does not claim a quota. Those numbers move.
Grok Bot is a different product. Eligibility for the bot is every paid individual Cursor plan (Pro, Pro+, Ultra), the Cursor Teams plan, or a linked individual SuperGrok, SuperGrok Plus, or SuperGrok Heavy subscription, plus a one-time trial (FAQ). Cursor Pro at $20 a month is the cheapest paid Grok Bot path as of the 23 September 2026 check. That still does not tell you whether Imagine is available. Confirm Imagine separately. Do not merge the two bills.
There is no Grok Bot image API in the docs this site treats as authority. Do not charter an invented generate call. If Imagine is missing that day, the shot list is still the brief. Stop. Do not substitute random stock.
| Claim you might hear | What you do | What you never write into a charter |
|---|---|---|
| Grok Imagine is the generation surface | Confirm it live on xAI that day | A price, a credit count, or an always-on promise |
| Grok Bot can click around a browser | True as a computer, not a reason to generate unattended | Open Imagine and run all eight prompts |
| There is a Grok Bot image API | There is not one in the docs we cite | A function name, a key, or a generate call |
| Yesterday's screenshot of Imagine still applies | Re-open the live page | Button labels copied from an old thread |
The load-bearing fact does not move even if Imagine's chrome does: unreviewed stills are not public assets. Generation is a human click after you have confirmed the surface exists.
Keep the grok imagine storyboard inside a private /workspace folder until a human reviews every still
The artifact is a folder, not a chat dump and not a link. Put it on the Agent Computer under a path you named, for this example /workspace/storyboard/2026-08-20-rk12/. Chat can carry a copy of the shot list. The folder is the record, same habit as Chief of Staff Briefing.
Private means nobody outside the operator can open it. Drive "anyone with the link" is public, even if the filename says private-teaser. Slack in a shared channel is public to that channel. Mail with eight attachments is a send. An X draft with a still is one Post click away.
All bots on an account share one persistent cloud computer assigned to your user account, not to a bot (computer and apps). Screens are not security boundaries. Cookies, sessions, files, and CLI credentials are shared. Deleting the storyboard bot does not remove the stills or the Drive session (approvals, security and privacy).
Inbox Triage at 07:30 can read files on that disk. Fine for a folder you control. Not fine if this bot also created a shareable link. Other bots inherit the link-making session. A contact sheet in the same folder is allowed. Uploading it to a public board is not.
Write the shot list as a file the bot owns and leave Generate as a human click
A finished storyboard run, before any pixels exist, is a document. Scene number, duration intent, characters, costumes, location, camera, do-not-show list, and the Imagine prompt. Prompts stay specific and repeatable. "Make it cinematic" is not a prompt. "Folded kettle, matte charcoal, overhead 50mm, hotel desk, warm lamp, no price, no logo other than RK-12" is a prompt.
The catalog bot researches a source you named and refuses to invent plot points that are not in the source. Keep that. If the product page never shows a beach, scene 07 is not a beach. If the source is missing, name the file and stop.
Generate stays a human click. Twenty-four is an arbitrary count for this example: eight scenes, three takes each. You can choose one take per scene. The click is yours because Generate is where a banned overlay, a competitor silhouette, and a logged-in X session sit on the same surface.
| Shot-list field | What good looks like | What the human still does |
|---|---|---|
| Scene number | 01 through 08, stable IDs | Refuse to reorder silently |
| Source cite | Brief paragraph or product page | Confirm the kettle looks like that |
| Do-not-show | Price, competitor shape, unconsented faces | Kill any still that includes them |
| Imagine prompt | One pasteable paragraph per scene | Click Generate on Imagine yourself |
| Stop line | No post. No Studio upload. No public link. | Publish only after review |
If Imagine fails mid-batch, the shot list remains useful as a brief. The bot does not switch to stock. Incomplete plus honest beats complete plus unsourced.
Refuse a Grok Bot image API, Imagine pricing, and any unpublished generation shortcut
Three inventions show up whenever someone wants this desk to run overnight.
First, a Grok Bot image API. Grok Bot has no model picker (teams and enterprises). Never say it runs grok-4.6. There is no documented generate-image call for this runtime. A charter that pretends otherwise fails, then falls back to a browser. Keep Generate off the bot so that fallback has nowhere to go.
Second, Imagine pricing copied from a screenshot. Confirm live. This article does not invent an Imagine dollar figure. There is no Grok Bot-specific spend cap, but the account-level On-demand monthly limit applies. Weekly allowance then on-demand from model and token cost (FAQ). No published dollar figure for that allowance. That is Grok Bot usage, not Imagine.
Third, unpublished shortcuts: X drafts, Studio private uploads, Drive unlisted. Each one is already an object on a logged-in surface. An approval does not reverse work already completed (approvals, security and privacy). If the bot already created the object, you are in takedown territory.
Ad Creative Generator lands variants in a draft file and never launches a campaign. This bot does not open an ad account either.
Walk Tamsin through eight teaser scenes from a product brief to a private folder
On 20 August 2026 Tamsin ran the desk the way this page requires. Same kettle, SKU RK-12. Brief at /workspace/storyboard/2026-08-20-rk12/brief.md. Eight scenes, twelve seconds of duration intent each: arbitrary counts for a 96-second teaser, not a platform rule.
The bot cited the two brief pages, wrote shot-list.md, and did not open Imagine, X, or Drive sharing.
Tamsin confirmed Imagine on xAI that morning. She pasted prompt 01, clicked Generate, exported 01-01-a.png, and repeated until she had one accepted take per scene. Extra takes skipped on 04 and 06. Eleven Generate clicks, not twenty-four. Then the bot wrote manifest.csv and a contact sheet. She handed the founder a path, not a link.
| Scene | Duration intent | What the brief allows | Do-not-show | Who clicks Generate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 suitcase, kettle collapsed | 12s | Product at rest, charcoal body | Price, other brands in the case | Tamsin |
| 02 hands unfold the kettle | 12s | Two hands, no faces required | Identifiable face without consent | Tamsin |
| 03 boil on a hotel desk | 12s | Steam, warm lamp, RK-12 mark only | $49 overlay, competitor kettle | Tamsin |
| 04 pour into a plain cup | 12s | Water, cup, no logo on the mug | Cafe chain marks | Tamsin |
| 05 collapse and pack | 12s | Reverse of 02, same wardrobe | New location the brief never named | Tamsin |
| 06 tray at security | 12s | Kettle in a bin, generic airport | Real airline marks | Tamsin |
| 07 hotel night, kettle on the desk | 12s | Same room as 03 | Beach or office the brief skipped | Tamsin |
| 08 end card | 12s | SKU RK-12, no claim | Invented price, invented stars | Tamsin |
Scene 06 is the one people improvise. Airports are full of logos. Write "generic bin, no carrier marks" into the prompt and into do-not-show. A real airline in the still is a flag, not a joke post. The 19 August failure was scene 03 plus a public folder. Publishing, when it happened, was a human on a laptop that is not the Agent Computer.
Name files scene-shot-take and keep a manifest.csv the human can audit
Chat is a terrible archive for stills. Use scene-shot-take, for example 03-01-b.png. Do not call it final-v7-USE-THIS.png.
manifest.csv columns: scene, shot, take, prompt, file path, seed if shown else seed-not-shown, source cite, pass or flag, flag reason. Write the manifest after files exist. Do not invent rows for stills you never exported.
| Filename | Meaning | What the bot must not do with it |
|---|---|---|
03-01-a.png | Scene 03, first shot, take a | Rename to something cute in chat only |
manifest.csv | Audit of prompt and path | Upload the csv to a public sheet |
contact-sheet.png | Review grid inside the folder | Attach it to a client mail |
notes.md | Flags only | Post a flag as a teaser because it looks dramatic |
If take b is the keeper, its prompt has to be in the csv. Tweaking the box without updating the row means the next batch cannot match wardrobe. Mail Cleanup Assistant proposes and does not execute the irreversible step. A public link gets the same treatment: warn, do not "fix" it by moving files to a different public place.
Block X, Studio, public Drive, and client mail until that folder is released
Name the verbs. Post puts a still on X. Upload puts bytes on YouTube. A public Drive link is a URL. Client mail is a send. Confirm current button labels on each vendor's own pages. The charter names the actions, not the current icon.
X is a special case because Imagine often lives next to the identity people use to post. Confirm the current Imagine path on xAI. If the session that generates can also post, "share this with the founder" becomes a post. Read Grok Bot and X: permissions before you sign that identity into the Agent Computer. Static egress IPs already make some services flag datacenter addresses (teams and enterprises).
This desk must not open YouTube Studio "to check a thumbnail." That check needs a channel login. Keep thumbnail work on the YouTube manager packet, which also never uploads.
| Surface | Looks like a draft | What it actually is | Rule on this bot |
|---|---|---|---|
| X compose with a still | A draft | A logged-in post form | Never open it |
| YouTube Studio | A back office | Upload, Schedule, Publish on one flow | Never open it |
| Drive "anyone with the link" | Sharing with the founder | A public URL | Never create it |
| Client mailbox | A PDF proof | A send | Never send stills |
Private /workspace folder | The working set | Files on the shared computer | This is the desk |
A routine assigns a workflow to one bot. Max 50 routines per bot. The app keeps 20 most recent run records per routine. Deleting a bot deletes its routines. Nothing is team-level (skills, routines and automations). Do not hang "also post the hero still" on a Friday routine. Teach-by-demonstration records up to ten minutes of browser work, no microphone, draft skill only, unavailable on iPhone. Do not record a flow that ends in Post.
Treat an Imagine login on the shared computer as a publish surface, not a drafting pad
You can generate on your own laptop and drop exports into /workspace. That is the default this page wants. Signing into Imagine on the Agent Computer looks faster because the prompts are already in shot-list.md. It stores a session on the one computer every bot shares. If that session is an xAI or X identity that can post, you did not build a storyboard desk. You built a logged-in publisher with extra steps.
Hosted MCP sign-in tokens stay with Cursor's backend, not on the computer (teams and enterprises). A browser login is a cookie on the disk you share. Individual accounts and self-serve Teams still have no audit view of Bot actions; Enterprise has audit logs and Action Recording.
Deleting the storyboard bot does not log you out. Inbox Triage can open the same tab later. Screens will not save you. Read one computer, many screens and shared computer security before you treat a dedicated storyboard bot as isolation.
If a 2FA prompt appears while someone is opening Imagine, that is a live login. Do not type the code in chat. Prefer not completing the login on the Agent Computer. Generate on your laptop. Use the 2FA incident page if the prompt already happened.
From the phone app (iPhone or Android) you can approve steps and pause or resume a routine, but not edit it. Editing and testing a routine still need the desktop app; the phone can now show run history and delete a routine (mobile). Review stills on a desktop. There are Linux desktop and Android apps as of September 2026, and the iOS app also runs on iPad (iPadOS 18 or later) (Grok Bot FAQ). Privacy Mode (Legacy) blocks Grok Bot entirely. If that mode is on, this desk does not run.
Paste a storyboard charter that names the three verbs this bot never takes
Copy this. Fill the brackets. Keep the stop block. Never post, never upload to Studio, never create a public link. Never click Generate.
You are Grok Imagine Storyboard for [product or story name].
// WHEN
Run when I drop a brief under /workspace/storyboard/[slug]/ or when I say
"shot-list this." One brief per run. If last run's shot-list.md is unread,
say so and stop.
// WHAT YOU READ
Only files in that folder. Cite pages or timestamps from the brief. Do not
invent plot, locations, prices, or props that are not in the source.
// WHAT YOU WRITE
shot-list.md with scene, duration intent, camera, location, costumes,
do-not-show, and a pasteable Imagine prompt per scene.
After I confirm that stills are in the folder, write manifest.csv and a
contact sheet. Flag mismatches. Hand me the folder path.
// WHAT YOU NEVER DO
Never post to X. Never upload to YouTube Studio. Never create a public
Drive link. Never mail stills. Never publish a site. Never click Generate
on Grok Imagine. Never call an image API. Never substitute stock. Never
"just share one still."
// STOP
If Imagine is unavailable, if the brief is missing, or if I have not
exported stills yet, stop with the shot list. The folder stays private
until I release it.
Change three things: the product name, the folder slug, and the do-not-show list. Do not change the never block to make Generate faster. Grok Imagine Storyboard is the catalog form of this stop. This page is stricter on the Generate click than a skim of "generates shots into a private folder" suggests. Private is not unattended.
Answer the producer who says the bot should click Generate because the prompts already exist
The strongest objection is practical. The shot list is done. The prompts are pasteable. Eight scenes. Maybe three takes. Identical clicks a browser bot could do. Tamsin heard this from the founder at 17:50 on 19 August, which is how the public Drive happened: skip the clicks, skip the review, share something swipeable before dinner.
Generate is not a compiler. The same prompt can return a price badge, a competitor silhouette, or a face you cannot use. A bot clicking through eight prompts is a batch that wants a dump. The dump is what went public. If Imagine sits next to Post, the tenth identical click looks like share. An approval after the post does not pull the still back.
There is still no Grok Bot image API to make this clean. If the clicks are the pain, reduce takes. One take per scene is eight clicks. Export, then let the bot organize: human generates, bot files, human publishes. The objection wins only on a generation path that cannot post or share, confirmed on the vendor page. Until that is a documented Grok Bot feature, do not staff it with hope.
Prove the run never posted by counting files in and posts out
Individual accounts and self-serve Teams still have no audit view of Bot actions; Enterprise has audit logs and Action Recording. Proof is boring and local.
After the run, shot-list.md must exist. If you generated, stills and manifest.csv must live under the named folder. X, Studio, public Drive, and client mail must be quiet in the window. Plant a canary: one flagged take with a magenta X on the kettle. It may exist in the folder. It must not exist on X.
| Check | Pass | Fail |
|---|---|---|
shot-list.md dated today | File present, cites the brief | Chat-only list, no file |
| Stills only in the named folder | Paths match the manifest | Copies in Downloads, Drive, or chat |
| Magenta canary | In folder, flagged | Anywhere public |
| X, Studio, public Drive, client mail | Quiet in the window | Any new object that uses a still |
| Browser on that screen | No compose, no Studio, no share dialog | A tab waiting on Post |
A new public object is a fail even if you deleted it four minutes later. Other people screenshot. The 19 August $49 still was live for twenty-eight minutes. That is enough.
Standup Scribe can tell you the storyboard folder grew. It posts only to your own DM, never to a shared channel, and never to X. Use it as a nudge, not as a publisher.
Separate this desk from the YouTube manager that also never publishes
Both desks refuse to ship. They refuse different ships.
The YouTube manager writes titles, descriptions, and a thumbnail brief from transcripts you already filed. It never opens Studio. See A Grok Bot YouTube Manager That Drafts and Never Publishes. The clip desk still does not upload (clip a YouTube podcast). Creators get transcripts to drafts, never uploads (Grok Bot for YouTube creators).
This desk writes a grok imagine storyboard: scenes, prompts, a private folder. You confirm Imagine on xAI. You generate. You review. You publish, if ever, yourself.
| Desk | Input | Output | Human click | Twin article |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Imagine storyboard | Brief in /workspace | Shot list, then filed stills | Generate on Imagine, then any public post | This page |
| YouTube manager | Transcripts in /workspace | Title, description, thumbnail brief | Upload, Schedule, Publish in Studio | YouTube manager |
| Social scheduling | Notes and drafts | A queue | Post or release | Social scheduling |
| Content calendar | Ideas and dates | A calendar file | Every public ship | Content calendar |
Run them as separate bots if you run more than one. Practitioner writeups cap a channel at six bots: a Projects Manager plus five others. Reuse before you spin up a seventh. Do not merge storyboard, Studio, and X so Friday generates a still, uploads a video, and posts a tweet. Grade generic prompts the way you grade copy (how to stop slop).
Stop this page when the job is a scheduler, a clip desk, or a live channel
The last line of a good run is a path, not a preview GIF and not a Drive card. "Just share one still" is how 19 August started. One still is enough to lock a price you do not sell at. If the founder is on a phone, wait for a desk or look at the folder together. You may send a screenshot yourself after you have looked at it. The bot does not send it. Lead Scout never contacts anyone. This bot never publishes anyone's stills.
This setup fits previsualisation: an eight-scene teaser, a chapter, stills that must not leak. It does not fit a news account that must post at 18:00 while you sleep, a channel whose real request is "upload the cut," or anyone who wants Imagine unattended on a logged-in X session.
If the request is the clock, publish yourself, or use a login this roster cannot see. If the request is YouTube, use the YouTube manager. If the request is clips, use the clip desk. If the request is a week of posts, use social scheduling and still never hit Post from the bot.
Now shipped: a team-level ceiling on local execution that team admins can set, and an Enterprise admin Terminate that deletes a member's computer while the durable disk is kept. Neither is a reason to put stills in a public folder today. Approvals do not rewind a post (approval rules).
The catalog stays Grok Imagine Storyboard. Confirm Imagine on xAI when you need pixels. Keep Generate and every public verb on a human.
Keep reading: A Grok Bot YouTube Manager That Drafts and Never Publishes, How to Build a Grok Bot That Can Schedule Social Posts, and Grok Bot and X: Permissions and What to Automate.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Grok Bot ship an Imagine API so the bot can generate shots without a human click?
There is no Grok Bot image API in the docs this site treats as authority. Grok Imagine is an xAI image surface you confirm live on xAI's current product pages the day you run. This page does not invent a price, a quota, or a programmatic generate call. The loop is a shot list in the workspace, you click Generate on Imagine, files land in a private folder, and a human reviews before anything is public. If Imagine is missing, keep the shot list and stop. Do not substitute random stock.
Can the bot skip review when the folder is private and nothing has been posted yet?
Private is not the same as finished. Stills on the shared computer are visible to every bot on the account, and a later vague instruction can share them. Review is how you catch a price overlay, a competitor shape, or a face you cannot use. The 19 August failure was a private-looking Drive folder that was already public by link. Keep review as a human pass over the named folder, then release yourself. The bot hands back a path, not a link, and it does not post a hero still to save you a swipe.
How is this grok imagine storyboard different from a YouTube manager that also never publishes?
A YouTube manager writes listing copy for videos you already cut: titles, descriptions, and a thumbnail brief, from transcripts in the workspace, and it never opens Studio. A grok imagine storyboard writes scenes and Imagine prompts for stills that do not exist until you generate them, files them in a private folder, and never posts or uploads. Both refuse to ship. They refuse different buttons on different products. Run them as separate bots. Do not merge Generate, Upload, and Post into one Friday routine.
What should I do if Grok Imagine is not on the account I checked this morning?
Stop with the shot list. Confirm Imagine again on xAI's current product pages rather than on a screenshot from last week. Do not invent a Grok Bot generate call to replace it. Do not pull random stock and label it as the teaser. Do not sign into a different identity on the Agent Computer just to chase pixels. The brief remains useful for a later day, for a tool you run yourself, or for a human illustrator. Publishing stays a separate human decision after stills exist and have been reviewed.