How do I install the Maintainer Decline Claude Code skill?

Install via the ClaudSkills desktop app (one click) or copy SKILL.md from the source repository to ~/.claude/skills/maintainer-decline/SKILL.md and restart Claude Code. Both flows are detailed at https://claudskills.com/install/.

Is this skill free to install?

Yes. ClaudSkills is an open registry — every skill keeps its source repository's license, and manual install via copy is free. ClaudSkills Pro ($9/mo, $79/yr, or $149 one-time) adds one-click install via the desktop app and a multi-signal Quality Score.

ClaudSkills / General / general-misc

Maintainer Decline

Category: General · Sub-category: general-misc · Last updated: 2026-05-25

Guide for drafting issue closure and decline responses as an open-source package maintainer. Use when helping compose a reply that says \"no\" to a feature request, closes an issue as won't-fix, redirects a user to a different package, explains why a design choice is intentional, or otherwise declines or closes a community contribution. Also use when the maintainer needs to explain a deprecation, point out a user misunderstanding, or communicate an effort/scope tradeoff to a contributor.

From the source SKILL.md

Help an open-source maintainer compose responses that close, decline, or redirect issues while leaving the contributor informed and respected.

What this skill does

Maintainer Decline is a community-contributed Claude Code skill in the general-misc sub-category. It ships as a SKILL.md file that Claude Code auto-discovers under ~/.claude/skills/maintainer-decline/ and loads when your prompt matches the skill's trigger.

When to invoke it: Use when helping compose a reply that says \"no\" to a feature request, closes an issue as won't-fix, redirects a user to a different package, explains why a design choice is intentional, or otherwise declines or closes a community contribution. Also use when the maintainer needs to explain a deprecation, point out a user misunderstanding, or communicate an effort/scope tradeoff to a contributor.

Who uses this skill

The Maintainer Decline Claude Code skill is built for Claude Code users and developers across all disciplines looking for general-purpose AI assistance. It's part of ClaudSkills (also referred to as Claude Skills or Claude Code Skills) — the open community-curated registry of 70,000+ SKILL.md files for Anthropic's Claude Code agent and the wider Claude ecosystem (Claude API, Claude Agent SDK).

How to install

Free

Manual install (2 steps)

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/maintainer-decline
curl -L https://claudskills.com/skills/maintainer-decline/SKILL.md \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/maintainer-decline/SKILL.md

Or just download SKILL.md directly and drop it into ~/.claude/skills/maintainer-decline/. Claude Code auto-discovers it on next session.

Skills live at ~/.claude/skills/maintainer-decline/SKILL.md on macOS/Linux, or %USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills\maintainer-decline\SKILL.md on Windows. See the full install guide for step-by-step instructions.

Pro

One-click install via the desktop app

The ClaudSkills desktop app installs any skill directly into ~/.claude/skills/ with one click — no terminal required. Pro starts at $9/mo or $149 lifetime.

Pro

For the full experience including quality scoring and one-click install features for each skill — upgrade to Pro.

See pricing → Download desktop app

Attribution & license

Source: https://github.com/posit-dev/skills/blob/HEAD/open-source/maintainer-decline/SKILL.md
License: MIT
Author: posit-dev

Cite this skill

If you reference this skill in a blog post, paper, or documentation, you can cite it as:

APA

posit-dev. (2026). Maintainer Decline [Claude Code skill]. ClaudSkills. https://claudskills.com/skills/maintainer-decline/

BibTeX

@misc{maintainer-decline-2026,
  author    = {posit-dev},
  title     = {Maintainer Decline [Claude Code skill]},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {ClaudSkills},
  url       = {https://claudskills.com/skills/maintainer-decline/}
}

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Badge

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