Called when cards are given their initial grade outside of the review process, e.g. when the user gives an initial grade when adding a new card in the GUI. Therefore, ‘unseen’ is still left to True, as this card has not yet been seen in the interactive review process.
Cards which don’t have initial grade information available (e.g. for cards created during import or conversion from different card type), get their initial grade when they are encountered in the interactive review process for the first time.
In both cases, this initial grading is seen as the first repetition.
In this way, both types of cards are treated in the same way. (There is an ineffectual asymmetry left in the log messages they generate, but all the relevant information can still be parsed from them.)