the Free-plan hint's reads: a public reused holder gets the "private" NOTE and hint, an unread root is taken as the run's visibility, and an unread plan is silent #660

L2-58 (P3; scripts/family.py, #602 follow-up): family.py init --reuse-empty-repo goes by --visibility, the run's, and never asks the reused holder's own visibility, so a public holder gets the "private" NOTE and the Free-plan hint.

• At 55faad2 _finish_holder_remote tests args.visibility in ("private", "internal") (scripts/family.py:1347), prints the NOTE, and calls free_plan_secret_hint(args.org, repository, f"{repository} and its members are") (:1353-1356). --visibility defaults to private (:5730-5731), _checked_reuse (:1246) asks only whether the repository is empty, and family.py has no gh repo view --json visibility call. The holder is the repository whose validate workflow reads the secrets, so its own visibility decides, as the root's does for the scaffold since scaffold-project.py re-run: a leg that gh sees and git cannot read gets a generic failure, and the reuse run's "two new legs" and private-leg text are wrong #542.
• Measured on a scratch export of main with a stub gh that knows testorg/Orbit as PUBLIC and empty: init --reuse-empty-repo --no-push exits 0 and prints "testorg/Orbit is private and its members will be too" and "testorg/Orbit and its members are private, so org-level SHAPE_LEGS_APP_ID / SHAPE_LEGS_APP_PRIVATE_KEY resolve to EMPTY". The stub saw no visibility question. adopt-project.py and scaffold-project.py: the Free-plan secrets hint goes by the assembly root's own visibility on GitHub and names the root as its reason, so a public source adopted with private legs is no longer told its organisation secrets resolve to EMPTY (#602) #621 does not touch family.py.
• Direction: when the holder is reused and the remote is not local, read its visibility with the reader from L2-57, gate the NOTE and the hint on it, and say so when it cannot be read. The manifest's visibility: (templates/family-root/family.yaml:46, filled from args.visibility at scripts/family.py:1167) is L2-23's question for the family.

— #459, comment

L2-57 (P3; scaffold-project.py, #602 review): a reused root whose visibility cannot be read is taken as the run's visibility, so a public root can get the Free-plan hint.

• At 55faad2 _create_remotes reads a reused root with remote_visibility(...) or args.visibility (scaffold-project.py:1174-1175), _reused_leg_visibility ends return seen or args.visibility (:1213), and _leg_visibility falls back to "private" (:1031-1038). _private_leg_note then goes by that value (:1257-1260). The scaffold-project.py and family.py init: the dry runs skip the target-exists and folder checks, and any gh repo view failure reads as "does not exist" #609 writer's first edge case names these callers: any gh failure falls back to the run's visibility.
• Measured on a scratch export of main with a stub gh that knows testorg/Atlas as PUBLIC and answers its repo view --json visibility with HTTP 502: --reuse-empty-repo --no-push exits 0 and prints "testorg/Atlas-spec and testorg/Atlas-code are private, so org-level SHAPE_LEGS_APP_ID / SHAPE_LEGS_APP_PRIVATE_KEY resolve to EMPTY", which is false of a public root. After adopt-project.py and scaffold-project.py: the Free-plan secrets hint goes by the assembly root's own visibility on GitHub and names the root as its reason, so a public source adopted with private legs is no longer told its organisation secrets resolve to EMPTY (#602) #621 the same run says "testorg/Atlas is private" (rv602's F1, scaffold-unread-public-root-out.txt). The read is unlikely to fail a moment after the scaffold read the same root, so this is rare.
• Direction: adopt's _root_visibility and its ROOT_VISIBILITY_UNREAD NOTE (adopt-project.py and scaffold-project.py: the Free-plan secrets hint goes by the assembly root's own visibility on GitHub and names the root as its reason, so a public source adopted with private legs is no longer told its organisation secrets resolve to EMPTY (#602) #621) are the model. Move the reader and the NOTE into scripts/shape_materialize.py, which is not a shape copy, so both tools follow the one rule adopt-project.py and scaffold-project.py: the Free-plan secrets hint goes by the assembly root's own visibility on GitHub and names the root as its reason, so a public source adopted with private legs is no longer told its organisation secrets resolve to EMPTY (#602) #621's body states.

— #459, comment

L2-59 (P3; scripts/repo_shape.py, #602 review): free_plan_secret_hint returns None for a plan it cannot read, exactly as for a paid plan, so a closed root on an organisation whose plan does not read back as free gets neither the hint nor a word.

• scripts/repo_shape.py:1050-1055 at 55faad2: a gh that cannot start, a nonzero gh api orgs/<org> and any plan name other than free all return None, and the docstring says it prints nothing rather than guess (:1042-1043). The scaffold, adopt and family.py init call it (scaffold-project.py:1258, adopt-project.py:7682, scripts/family.py:1353). README.md:628-631 says "the creating tools check and say so".
• A token that cannot read the organisation's plan therefore hides a true hint in silence, in all three tools. adopt-project.py and scaffold-project.py: the Free-plan secrets hint goes by the assembly root's own visibility on GitHub and names the root as its reason, so a public source adopted with private legs is no longer told its organisation secrets resolve to EMPTY (#602) #621 names an unread ROOT now; an unread PLAN is still silent (rv602's F2, pre-existing).
• Direction: repo_shape.py is a pinned shape copy, so a change to it re-pins every project. Put the plan read in a helper in scripts/shape_materialize.py that answers free, other or unread, keep FREE_PLAN_HINT's text, and have the callers print a named NOTE for unread. Bundle any change to repo_shape.py itself with its next re-pin.

— #459, comment

L2-71 (nit; scripts/family.py, #621 fix round): family.py init's Free-plan hint says "<holder> and its members are private", which names members that do not exist at init and that init does not make.

• At 4cf5fb0 _finish_holder_remote passes f"{repository} and its members are" as the hint's subject (scripts/family.py:1353-1354), and the NOTE above it says "and its members will be too" (:1348-1349). The hint reads "{what} private, so org-level SHAPE_LEGS_APP_ID / SHAPE_LEGS_APP_PRIVATE_KEY resolve to EMPTY" (scripts/repo_shape.py:1013-1014), and its two gh secret set lines name the holder alone (:1019-1020). Each member is a whole project with its own repositories (scripts/family.py:22-24).
• Measured on a scratch export of main with a stub gh that answers plan free for any organisation: family.py init --org testorg --family Orbit --no-push --work-dir <d> exits 0 and prints "testorg/Orbit and its members are private, so org-level". No member exists yet at that point.
• adopt-project.py and scaffold-project.py: the Free-plan secrets hint goes by the assembly root's own visibility on GitHub and names the root as its reason, so a public source adopted with private legs is no longer told its organisation secrets resolve to EMPTY (#602) #621 (head 10dda17, not on main) changes the scaffold's and adopt's subject to the root alone (scaffold-project.py:1276-1278 and adopt-project.py:7859-7860 at 10dda17, f"{root} is") and leaves scripts/family.py:1353-1354. f621r left it as it was: "true of the holder it creates but names the members too; no change" (impl602-free-plan-hint-root/progress.md).
• Direction: f"{repository} is", as the other two say it after adopt-project.py and scaffold-project.py: the Free-plan secrets hint goes by the assembly root's own visibility on GitHub and names the root as its reason, so a public source adopted with private legs is no longer told its organisation secrets resolve to EMPTY (#602) #621, since the secrets that matter are the ones the holder's own validate workflow reads (L2-58). Decide the NOTE's "its members will be too" with it, because it makes the same claim about members to come. A grep of tests/, README.md, AGENTS.md and docs/ finds neither sentence, and tests/test_free_plan_hint.py:112-123 only checks that each tool calls the hint with its own organisation. scripts/repo_shape.py is not touched, so no project re-pins.

— #459, comment