diff --git a/docs/admin/permissions/api.mdx b/docs/admin/permissions/api.mdx
index eef7f9617..184efe98d 100644
--- a/docs/admin/permissions/api.mdx
+++ b/docs/admin/permissions/api.mdx
@@ -99,6 +99,8 @@ You can call `setRepositoryPermissionsForUsers` repeatedly to set permissions fo
 
 ## Setting sub-repository permissions for users
 
+> NOTE: If a user has no sub-repo permissions set for a specific repository (assuming that they have general access to the repository), they will have access to the entire repository contents.
+
 Sourcegraph supports permissions on a per-file/directory basis. 
 
 To enable the sub-repo permissions API, add the following to the [site configuration](/admin/config/site_config):