Do I need all five dep types?

No — most templates need memories plus one connector at most. Paste-only prompts need nothing but the prompt.

Skills or memories for tone of voice?

Memories. Skills are built-in capabilities; your voice rules are facts about you — that's what memories store.

What's the difference between a plugin and MCP?

Plugins are Grok Bot's packaged connectors; MCP is the open protocol behind some of them. Templates list whichever the connector actually uses.

Skills vs memories vs plugins — what goes where

Skills shape behavior, memories store your facts, plugins reach tools — deps fields map to these.

Steps

To read any template page here in order: check the deps block, write the memories first, connect only what the steps name, then run once by hand.

Every template page on this site lists a deps block — the things you need in place before the prompt works. That block has five fields, and they confuse people because three of them sound like the same thing. They’re not.

Field	What it is	Decides
`skills`	Built-in capabilities the agent uses (e.g. web search)	Whether the run can reach certain abilities at all
`memories`	Facts you write once and the agent always knows — your voice rules, taxonomies, policies, lists	Consistency across runs
`plugins`	Packaged connectors to outside tools — Gmail, Sheets, Zendesk	Whether the agent can read/write real systems
`mcp`	Connectors exposed via the MCP protocol	Same as plugins, different plumbing
`permissions`	What the agent may read or reach — connector scopes, or input access like pasted notes (`none` when it needs nothing)	What the agent is allowed to touch

The one rule that matters

Voice and facts live in memories, not in the prompt. A prompt says “draft like us” and invents what “us” means. A memory says exactly which openers are banned and which escalations exist. Every template here that mentions tone, taxonomy, policy, or lists expects a memory — that’s why the setup steps say “write the memory” before “run”.

Skills are rarely configured — they’re capabilities the platform either has or doesn’t. Plugins and MCP entries only matter if a template reads or writes an outside system; pure drafting templates (paste notes in, get text out) list neither.

Reading a deps block in 10 seconds

No plugins and no mcp → paste-and-run, free plan, no connectors to wire.
memories: 1-2 entries → the template’s quality depends on you writing these well. Budget the 10 minutes.
plugins or mcp non-empty → requires Pro in most cases, and check permissions before connecting — drafts-only scopes are safer than send scopes.

Common mistakes

Policy in the prompt — works once, drifts by week three. Move it to a memory.
Too many memories — the agent starts contradicting itself. One memory per topic (voice, taxonomy, blocklist), not one per rule.
Connecting a write scope you don’t need — if the template drafts for review, grant draft scope, not send scope.

Next: wire it up

Connect your first tool with the MCP plugin guide, then put the run on a clock with routines.