first-maintainer-month
Set up a new open-source project's first month so it can grow without eating its maintainer — the README that routes people correctly, CONTRIBUTING boundaries written before there are contributors, issue templates that pre-triage, a release rhythm, and the sustainability defaults (what you owe no one). Use when someone says 'my repo is getting attention', 'I just open-sourced something', 'set up my project properly', or their first PR from a stranger just landed. Produces the docs set, the templates, and the month-one routine.
npx skills add mohitagw15856/pm-claude-skills --skill first-maintainer-month --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# First Maintainer Month Skill The transition from "my code, public" to "a project with users" happens in one surprising week — the first stranger's issue, the first PR, the first demand — and the habits set in that month harden into the project's culture. Most maintainer burnout traces back to boundaries never written: no CONTRIBUTING to point at, no issue template doing the pre-triage, no stated release rhythm, and an implicit promise of instant response that was never sustainable. This skill sets the defaults while they're cheap: documents that route people, templates that filter, and the load-bearing sentence every new maintainer needs in writing — *this is a volunteer project; responses happen when they happen.* ## What This Skill Produces - A **README restructure**: what it does in one line, quickstart, the support-expectations paragraph, and where everything else routes - **CONTRIBUTING.md** written for a project with 0–5 contributors: what's welcome, what needs an issue first, the vision line that powers future nos, PR standards kept minimal - **Issue/PR templates** that pre-triage: bug template demanding the repro, feature template asking "why does this belong here?", the
- What This Skill Produces
- Required Inputs
- Framework
- Output Format
- Quality Checks
- Anti-Patterns
- Related
What does the first-maintainer-month skill do?
Set up a new open-source project's first month so it can grow without eating its maintainer — the README that routes people correctly, CONTRIBUTING boundaries written before there are contributors, issue templates that pre-triage, a release rhythm, and the sustainability defaults (what you owe no one). Use when someone says 'my repo is getting attention', 'I just open-sourced something', 'set up my project properly', or their first PR from a stranger just landed. Produces the docs set, the templates, and the month-one routine.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add mohitagw15856/pm-claude-skills --skill first-maintainer-month --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From mohitagw15856/pm-claude-skills, a repository with 1,255 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.