Locate tickets and dig dates: a log that stops crews starting early.

Between filing a locate request and lifting the first bucket sit a waiting period, a list of utilities that each owe an answer, and an end date after which the marks no longer count. State law or the state's one-call center sets each of them, and they differ. A ticket log records them per ticket, so that no crew starts on a ticket that has not run its course or has already lapsed.

An assistant can keep that log, read the centers' status pages and draft update requests for the owner to file. It never says a site is clear to dig: whether to dig is the owner's call, and how to expose a marked line is the operator's, on site. The rules below come from Florida, Texas and Minnesota as published on 16 October 2026. They illustrate the differences; the owner confirms the rule for each state the company works in, and none of this is legal advice.

According to the national 811 service, whoever files a request gets back a ticket number with instructions: how long the utilities have to respond, and how to confirm that all of them have. Its page for professionals covers the other end of the ticket. If the marks cannot be kept up during the job, or the work will run past the request's expiration date, which varies by state, the excavator asks the center for a re-mark.

The federal duty sits underneath. OSHA's section 1926.651(b) has an employer establish roughly where utilities run before an excavation is opened, ask their owners to locate them, and pin down the exact position by safe means as the digging nears them. Minnesota, like other states with an OSHA-approved plan of its own, enforces its own standard instead.

The table sets two states' published rules side by side, with Texas below it, all as checked on 16 October 2026. They show how far the details move; questions of liability go to the company's own lawyer.

Texas runs on its own terms. Texas811 counts a two-working-day wait that leaves out state holidays, and the national 811 service's Texas page lists notice of no more than fourteen days ahead and marks valid for fourteen days, under state law or practice. Texas811's answers for excavators add two points a log should carry: there is no blanket ticket, so a subcontractor who digs needs its own, and a response of clear means only that this utility found no direct conflict with the described site.

Even the margin around a mark differs. Minnesota's guidance keeps power equipment at least two feet, side to side, from an unexposed facility; Texas811 says the one-call law sets no general margin, recommends hand digging within eighteen inches of a mark, and points to a state rule giving underground pipelines a tolerance zone of half the pipe's diameter plus at least eighteen inches each side. Florida's statute also says when an excavator may go ahead after an operator misses its marking time, and with what care. Those are readings for the owner on site, not entries the log decides.

The owner can create a Locates Bot in Grok Bot under Aevrion's pattern to keep these rows: a named Bot with its own conversation, told to remember the standing rule that it never writes 'clear', 'cleared' or 'safe' about a site; a utility's own response status is copied as the center shows it. A remembered rule guides the Bot; it is not a technical lock. The rows live in the company's own spreadsheet or job system, because the documentation says memory is no substitute for an authoritative source.

• TICKET NUMBER

  As issued, plus the original number for an update, so one dig's history stays in one row.

• WHO IT COVERS

  The company named on the ticket; a subcontracted dig gets its own where the state requires it.

• FILED

  Date and time, and whether it fell outside the center's business hours.

• AREA

  The address and dig area as described or white-lined, checked against the job plan.

• EARLIEST START

  Computed from the owner's written rule for that state and the center's holiday list.

• RESPONSES

  One line per utility, with the status the center's system shows and when it was read.

• ENDS

  The expiry under the state's rule, and the last day an update can still be filed in time.

• SITE NOTES

  Marks missing or disputed, as the operator reported them; each goes to the owner that day.

Based on the Grok Bot documentation at docs.x.ai as checked on 15 October 2026. Its statements on Bot rules, Bot-to-Bot messaging, routine triggers, connected apps, approval expiry and payments were rechecked against docs.x.ai and Cursor's help pages on 26 October 2026. The trade examples are Aevrion's illustrations, not documented Grok Bot use cases. Aevrion Ops is an independent consultancy. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or a partner of xAI, SpaceXSI or Cursor. Grok Bot is named here only to describe it.

The sequence holds in every state; only the clocks between the steps change.

1. 01

   Drafted

   Owner

   The Locates Bot, from the job record

   Advances when

   The owner approves the request, then completes the login and the submit

   Ends when

   Withdrawn if the job is canceled

2. 02

   Filed and waiting

   Owner

   The one-call center and its member utilities

   Advances when

   The state's waiting period runs out

3. 03

   Answers coming in

   Owner

   Each utility named on the ticket

   Advances when

   Every listed utility shows a response

   Ends when

   A delayed or no-access response goes to the owner to settle

4. 04

   The owner's call

   Owner

   The owner, with the responses and the marks on site

   Advances when

   The owner decides whether and how the crew digs, and the log records who decided

5. 05

   Running out

   Owner

   The Locates Bot flags it; the owner acts

   Advances when

   An update or re-mark is filed in time, opening a linked row

   Ends when

   The end date passes with nothing filed

6. 06

   Lapsed

   Owner

   Nobody

   Advances when

   A new ticket is filed and the clock restarts

   Ends when

   Closed in the log with its date; nobody digs on it

A Grok Bot routine runs a task on a schedule, never less than five minutes apart. The Locates Bot's routine runs each weekday before the crew leaves and opens each open ticket's status page, such as Gopher State One Call's search-and-status page or the status link saved in the ticket's row, by supervised browser use where the center allows it, subject to testing. Logins go to the owner through a takeover of the Bot's screen, and a site that blocks automation stays a manual check. The list has four parts: tickets with any utility unanswered, tickets whose earliest start is today or tomorrow, tickets ending soon, and responses that need a person. Where every listed utility has answered, it says exactly that and no more.

Filing, updating or canceling a ticket is a submission in the company's name, and the documentation recommends keeping such actions behind approval, with narrow Ask first rules. So the routine drafts the update request with the end date beside it, and the owner files it from the Bot's conversation. Nothing in the documentation retries a failed run or sends an alert, so an unreadable page is reported as unreadable rather than filled with yesterday's answers, and the owner checks the run history.

Before You Dig Australia's 2023 inquiry guide, in the copy South Australia's Department for Infrastructure and Transport publishes, describes a different shape (checked 16 October 2026). An inquiry lodged at least one business day ahead goes to the member asset owners near the site, whose plans indicate that assets exist there rather than exactly where; up to two business days should be allowed for them. Work waits for information from every affected asset owner, and a changed scope or expired plans need a new inquiry. The same log works with three columns renamed: inquiry number, plans received per owner, and validity end.

The first version needs no Bot: one page listing each open ticket, its earliest start, its responses and its end date, filled from the center's records. A week of keeping it by hand shows where the risk sits, whether in tickets that lapse while rain holds a job, in subcontracted digs riding on someone else's ticket, or in responses nobody went back to read.

That page is also the brief for a conversation with Aevrion Ops about the rows a Locates Bot would keep, the routine that reads the centers' pages, the approval rules around every filing, and whether each center's website can be read by supervised browser use where the center permits it. The contact page opens that conversation.

1. A locate ticket cannot be used before its waiting period ends or after its end date, and both dates are set by the state.
2. Florida, Texas and Minnesota set different notice periods, ticket lives and re-mark rules, so each log row follows the owner's confirmed rule for that state.
3. In Texas a general contractor's ticket does not cover a subcontractor who digs, and a clear response speaks only for that utility.
4. The log records responses as each center's system shows them; whether to dig is the owner's call, and how to expose a marked line the operator's.
5. A morning routine reads status pages on a schedule and drafts update requests, which the owner files from the Bot's conversation.
6. In Australia, Before You Dig Australia plans come from asset owners and carry validity dates, and a changed scope needs a new inquiry.