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A routine can be both the actual act of abuse, or it can be something that is part of the abuse.
An example of a routine that would be part of abuse but where the routine itself could occur outside of abuse might include a couple who have a collaborative fiction project together and sometimes engage in roleplays as the characters together, where the roleplays are not in and of themselves part of abuse. However, imagine that one of them thinks the other displays signs of plurality and wants to run an experiment without their consent to prove whether they are or are not plural and uses the roleplays to do so.
The abusive partner starts suddenly breaking into roleplays in the middle of everyday conversations, acting in-character as one of their shared characters and treating the partner as that character. The abuser partner carries on a conversation in-character and makes their partner act in-character too. The abuser carries this on until they feel finished with it, during which they return back to their normal self and end the roleplay.
This is a very basic, very simple example of what a routine can be. In this case, the pattern described is very broad, but it does exist. The shaper going in-character in everyday conversations and treating the other person as a character - where the end goal is to get them to split a fictive of that character to prove that that person is plural - having an in-character conversation, and then ending the roleplay, is a very basic and simple example of what a routine can be.
Routines can be more detailed, however. For example, the example given above could also have the shaper trying to have a specific conversation with their victim. e.g. one character reminiscing about something that would have happened in the story that both characters remember, and trying to make the victim develop a headmate with timeline memories of those things. They would try to have the same conversation every time, or try every time to reminisce about memories from the story, and that is the routine.
The example just given - at least the actual act of spontaneous roleplays, minus the manipulative context - may or may not be considered an act of abuse in and of itself. While it doesn't necessarily involve harming people, it will probably confuse and disorient the person to whom it happens (especially if the shaper gaslights them or pretends it didn't happen after the routine happens). Abusers often cause confusion for the purpose of manipulating or distressing a person, but it is not always manipulative to make someone confused.
However, a routine can be more specific, more intense, and more structured. Here is an example that involves sexual abuse.
Imagine somebody with a system has has been conditioned such that, when their abuser is around, one main part fronts, but when the abuser says a phrase intended to trigger certain conditioning, another more amnesiac part starts fronting instead. This part has a personality that has been conditioned to be more okay with the abuse, but this part does not necessarily enjoy being abused.
The abuser takes the victim, with this part fronting, to a room where they will be abused. The abuser then says another trigger phrase that is intended to trigger another switch, this time to another amnesiac part who is aware of what is going on but does not resist the abuse as much as the previous part would.
The abuser begins abusive physical acts with this part, which then escalate into full sexual intercourse. Before the intercourse happens, the abuser says yet another trigger phrase that triggers another switch, this time to a part that will remember the most intensely sexual part of the abuse, but the other parts will not remember it and not count those acts against the abuser.
Then, when the sexual intercourse is finished, the abuser says yet another trigger phrase, which triggers a part that is similar to the first-triggered part in that they are more okay with the abuse while not wanting it to happen to them. However, this part has more amnesia about what just happened, so the abuser tells them a fabricated version of what happened while that part was away. That part believes the abuser's version of events.
The abuser then triggers the part that fronts when the abuser is around but does not get personally abused. This part is completely amnesiac of everything that has just happened and is not aware there is any abuse at all. If they accidentally discover the memories, though, they are more likely to remember the false explanation for what happened than the real events.
This is an example of someone having sex with a person under unwilling circumstances but taking advantage of the existence of their system to do so, as well as personally abusing their system in a way that makes them easier to abuse. Therefore, the situation described is an act of abuse and therefore part of shaping. However, it is specifically the part of shaping that involves the routine.
In this case, the routine that is being practiced is the abuse itself and not something that is intended to make the victim easier to abuse. Rather, things the abuser would have done to the victim to make them easier to abuse (e.g. conditioning their system) would come into play and benefit them during the routine that constitutes the abuse itself.
Part of the reason that "routine" can refer to the lead-up to the abuse as well as to the abuse itself is because some people may not be entirely sure what their memories are about. They might not remember the details necessary to know if an event was part of the abuse or was just a lead-up to the abuse itself.
You can describe a routine in pretty much any terms you want. That is, you can say there was a "conditioning routine" or a "programming routine" for the parts of the shaping that were intended to make you do certain things, and you can say there was an "abuse routine" for the parts of the shaping where you were made to do the things in question.
Routines are usually big parts of storylines and are often how the shaper implants, introduces, or tells the story that is used to hurt the system. It is also one of the ways that the abuser creates new parts of the system.
It's important to understand that somebody having the same conversation multiple times, having habits like spontaneously roleplaying, or switching different headmates without announcing it are not inherently part of routines and are not even inherently abusive. In some cases, the behavior may be completely involuntary, even if it causes confusion.
If you feel that somebody is doing these things as an act of abuse, it is better to start by telling them you have a problem with the behavior and that it makes you uncomforable, and then asking them why they do it, rather than to start off by accusing them of plural abuse or of shaping you.
Abuse that happens in a certain pattern but doesn't involve the abuser specifically engaging with your system is also not a routine, at least in the context of shaping, even if you use the word "routine" to describe it because that word makes sense to you. It's okay to use the word "routine" to describe things that aren't shaping, but if you were both shaped as well as abused in ways that weren't shaping that you call a "routine", you may want to switch to another word for the non-shaping acts of abuse to be clearer.
For it to be a routine in the context of shaping, it has to be something where your abuser was trying to affect or interact with particular parts of your system (e.g. alters, sidesystems, etc.). That's because shaping is a form of plural abuse, and while singlets can be abused in ways that happen according to routines, this word has a particular meaning in the context of things that specifically happen to or related to systems.