Repository Privacy

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Repository Privacy and Visibility

AllSpice supports both organization-owned and personal repositories on hub.allspice.io and on dedicated, self-hosted instances.
This page explains:

  • The difference between organizations and personal repositories
  • How public and private visibility works on:
    • hub.allspice.io (“Hub”)
    • Dedicated / self-hosted AllSpice instances (“Dedicated hosting”)

How to change your repository privacy

See this article on the repository settings Danger Zone to change your repository privacy

Organizations vs Personal Repositories

AllSpice organizes work around two main types of owners: organizations and personal accounts.

Organization Repositories

An organization is a shared workspace that owns repositories, manages permissions, and groups people into teams.

Example: Solar Powered Ornithopter
https://hub.allspice.io/solar-ornithopter

This organization might maintain several PCB/hardware repositories:

  • sensor_hub — wing strain, IMU, or sensor aggregation board
    https://hub.allspice.io/solar-ornithopter/sensor_hub

  • solar_charger — MPPT and power-management electronics
    https://hub.allspice.io/solar-ornithopter/solar_charger

These repositories belong to the organization, not individual users.
Access is managed via organization-level permissions and teams.

Personal Repositories

Each user also has a personal namespace for their own repositories.

Examples:

  • Alice: https://hub.allspice.io/alice/ornithopter-playground
  • Bob: https://hub.allspice.io/bob/solar-mppt-experiments

Personal repos are ideal for:

  • Experimental work
  • Early prototypes
  • Forks of organization repositories
  • Drafts not yet ready for the main project

Users can later submit work from their personal repos back into organization repositories via design reviews.

Repository Privacy

Repositories can be either public or private.
The meaning of “public” differs between hub.allspice.io and dedicated hosting environments.

Public Repositories

Public repositories are designed for broad visibility and sharing.

Public Repos on hub.allspice.io (In Hub)

  • Visible to any visitor on the Hub (subject to global policies)
  • May appear in server-wide search and browsing
  • Can generally be cloned without requesting access
  • Forking availability depends on organization settings

Use cases:

  • Open hardware
  • Reference designs
  • Community projects

Example:
FOSS_water_filter/pump_driver could be public so external deisgners or collaborators can review its design.

Public Repos in Dedicated Hosting

On a dedicated/self-hosted instance:

  • Public repos are visible to all authenticated users inside the company
  • Not visible to the internet
  • Remain inside your organization’s security boundary

Public = visible to everyone inside your company’s AllSpice server.

Private Repositories

Private repositories restrict access to only the collaborators explicitly granted permissions.

Private Repos on hub.allspice.io (In Hub)

  • Not visible in public search or browsing
  • Only accessible to users with granted permissions
  • Source, issues, and design reviews are hidden from non-members

Examples:

  • solar-ornithopter/solar_charger may be private if the circuitry is proprietary
  • bob/solar-mppt-experiments may be private for early-stage R&D

Use cases:

  • Confidential or proprietary hardware
  • NDA-bound customer projects
  • Early experimental development

Private Repos in Dedicated Hosting

On dedicated hosting:

  • The environment is already internal
  • Private repositories add additional restriction on top of that
  • Only specifically granted users/teams can view or clone them

Private = restricted access within an already secured environment.

Summary

  • Organizations are shared project spaces; store official project repositories.
  • Personal repositories are for individual experimentation and prototypes.
  • Public repositories:
    • On Hub → visible across the AllSpice cloud server
    • On dedicated hosting → visible to everyone in your company
  • Private repositories:
    • On Hub → visible only to collaborators
    • On dedicated hosting → restricted role-based access (Teams)

When in doubt, choose private, then widen permissions as needed.