When Grok Bot replies start late because the skills folder is large

You will have a staff workaround for a late first reply that loads a bulky skills folder, labeled as unconfirmed by users. This was diagnosed for one account. Not every slow reply has this cause. Checked Oct 5, 2026.

Cursor staff (Colin, Community Support Engineer) said on the forum on Oct 5, 2026 that the messages reach the server within a second. The wait happens after that: at the start of every reply, Grok Bot loads the saved skills and memory folder on your cloud computer, and on that account the folder had grown large enough that loading it took about 24 minutes. Staff said they passed this to the engineering team.

Docs.x.ai do not document that folder, or that it is loaded on every reply. Treat the path below as what Cursor staff said on the forum, not as an official folder layout.

Staff workaround (not confirmed by users)

As of Oct 5, 2026, no user had confirmed that these steps reduced the delay. Staff said to move items, not delete them, and to let them know if the delay changes.

1. Ask your Bot to list the largest items in its skills folder (~/sand-data/workflows).
2. Move anything bulky that is not a skill, such as node_modules, .git folders, or caches, to another folder outside it. Staff said the wait grows with the size of that folder.
3. Please move, don't delete.
4. Send another message and see whether the reply starts sooner. If it does not, contact support rather than deleting the folder.

If you contact support, use the checklist in Troubleshooting under "Before contacting support": account email, version and platform, what you were doing, a screenshot, steps tried, and the request ID. Email is hi@cursor.com.

This page does not give a size threshold. Staff did not publish one.

Related

• All how-tos: How-to index.
• What a Bot keeps versus files on the computer: What a Grok Bot remembers.
• Teaching a task without dumping caches into skills: Teach a task in Grok Bot.
• Secrets that should not live in a skills folder: Store secrets securely in Grok Bot.
• More Grok Bot jobs live on the Grok Bot hub.

Pitfalls

• Deleting the folder or its files. Staff said move, don't delete.
• Treating ~/sand-data/workflows as documented product layout. Cursor staff said that path on the forum.
• Assuming every late reply is a large skills folder. Staff diagnosed this for one account.