A new repo, likely a new employee on a new project. I have to disagree with your statement since you don't know the context at all. If all they're given is a repo with inadequate instructions, there's not much more you can do than keep asking for general help.
Comment sounds like typical 'pull yourself up by the bootstraps', meant to put down new talent, ignoring that complex, modern dev environments have many parts that are completely out of reach for newcomers without adequate onboarding.
Like you said, why not both? The employee is already asking for help, that's their part. The manager needs to come in and assist, unless he enjoys churning his dev team.