What do I need to use Saying No Kindly?

The ask and the asker; The real reason; What's honestly offerable; The pattern, if any.

Is Saying No Kindly free to use?

Yes — run it free in the browser playground (no API key needed for the sponsored trial, or bring any provider key), or install it into Claude Code, Cursor, ChatGPT and more via npx pm-claude-skills. MIT-licensed and open source.

Saying No Kindly

Q: How do I know the Saying No Kindly output is good?

The skill verifies itself against its own quality checks: The no ships within a day of the ask; No soft-no language survives unless later is a real offer; Every attached alternative is honestly affordable or honestly routed; Upward nos present specific tradeoffs, never bare refusal.

🔵 Stable🕐 updated 2026-08-25 🔷 SkillSpec L3 pm-cowork

Decline requests without damaging relationships or your standing — the fast-clear-warm formula, the alternative-attached no, the no-to-the-boss version (tradeoffs, not refusal), and scripts for the asks that recur. Use when asked how do I say no to this, turn down a request, decline extra work politely, I say yes to everything and drown, push back on my manager, or protect the roadmap from a pet feature. Produces the decline scripts by relationship, the tradeoff framing, and the exact wording tuned to who is asking.

▶ Run it free — no key needed 📝 Grade your existing draft View SKILL.md ↗

What to give it

▸The ask and the asker — what's requested, by whom, with what relationship and power direction; the script's form follows

▸The real reason — capacity? Wrong person? Wrong project? The no's honesty level calibrates (capacity-nos can say so; judgment-nos need more care)

▸What's honestly offerable — the smaller/later/redirect alternatives that exist; alternatives invented to soften become new commitments, which is the disease again

▸The pattern, if any — recurring asks from the same source get the structural answer (the norm conversation), not the fifteenth artisanal decline

✅ The bar it holds itself to

Every skill in this library self-verifies — these are this skill's own quality checks, straight from its definition.

✓The no ships within a day of the ask

✓No soft-no language survives unless later is a real offer

✓Every attached alternative is honestly affordable or honestly routed

✓Upward nos present specific tradeoffs, never bare refusal

✓Recurring asks got the structural answer

⚠️ What it refuses to do

Do not slow-no — the delay is a cost you're charging the asker to spare yourself

Do not soften into zombie-maybes — they return, with interest and a grudge

Do not invent alternatives as anesthetic — fake redirects and unaffordable smaller-yeses are new debts

Do not say bare no upward — the tradeoff board is both more honest and more survivable

Do not decline the new while hoarding the old — the audit is where capacity actually returns

Install

npx pm-claude-skills add --agent claude   # or codex · cursor · gemini · hermes
# or one-line MCP (every skill, any client):
claude mcp add pm-skills -- npx -y pm-claude-skills-mcp

Related skills

🔌 Embed this skill

Drop this on your blog, docs, or site — it renders a "Run this skill" card:

<div data-pm-skill="saying-no-kindly"></div>
<script src="https://mohitagw15856.github.io/pm-claude-skills/embed.js" async></script>

💬 Discussion

Saying No Kindly is one of 1174 open-source professional AI agent skills — all SkillSpec L3. Try them all in the browser · ⭐ Star on GitHub · Browse the full catalog