Documentation with Sphinx

Last updated on 2025-06-18 | Edit this page

Overview

Questions

  • How do I document my project?

Objectives

  • Learn how to set up documentation

In this lesson, we’ll outline creating a documentation webpage using Sphinx.

You will: - set up a basic documentation directory, - create a configuration including the modern MyST plugin to get markdown support, - start a preview server, - create a table of contents, - add a page, - include part of your README.md, - choose a theme.

Configuration

We’ll start with the built-in template. Start by creating a docs/ directory within your project (i.e. next to src/).

You could use sphinx-quickstart to set up a basic template if you’d like.

BASH 

pipx run --spec sphinx sphinx-quickstart --no-makefile --no-batchfile --ext-autodoc --ext-intersphinx --extensions myst_parser --suffix .md docs

But this will put Restructured Text into the index.md file, and doesn’t really generate that much for you. You can instead add the docs/conf.py file yourself, which is what we’ll do here.

You first file is a configuration file, docs/conf.py:

PYTHON 

# docs/conf.py

project = "example"
extensions = ["myst_parser"]
source_suffix = [".rst", ".md"]

Index

And add (a correct) docs/index.md yourself:

MD 

# package

```{toctree}
:maxdepth: 2
:hidden:

```

## Indices and tables

* {ref}`genindex`
* {ref}`modindex`
* {ref}`search`

As you add new pages, you will list them in the toctree above.

Dependencies

Add the docs dependencies to pyproject.toml:

TOML 

[project.optional-dependencies]
docs = [
  "myst_parser >=0.13",
  "sphinx >=4.0",
]

Preview Server

You can install these dependencies using `pip install –editable “.[docs]”.

To run the Sphinx preview server, you can install sphinx-autobuild, then run:

BASH 

sphinx-autobuild --open-browser -b html "./docs" "_build/html"

This will rebuild if you change files, as well.

Nox session

You can set up a task runner like nox to run this for you:

PYTHON 

@nox.session(reuse_venv=True)
def docs(session: nox.Session) -> None:
    """
    Build the docs. Use "--non-interactive" to avoid serving.
    """

    serve = session.interactive
    extra_installs = ["sphinx-autobuild"] if serve else []
    session.install("-e.[docs]", *extra_installs)

    session.chdir("docs")

    shared_args = (
        "-n",  # nitpicky mode
        "-T",  # full tracebacks
        "-b=html",
        ".",
        f"_build/html",
        *session.posargs,
    )

    if serve:
        session.run("sphinx-autobuild", "--open-browser", *shared_args)
    else:
        session.run("sphinx-build", "--keep-going", *shared_args)

And you now have working docs that you can generate and view cross platform with nox -s docs!

Read the Docs

If you want to use https://readthedocs.org to build your docs, you’ll also want the following .readthedocs.yml:

YAML 

version: 2
build:
  os: "ubuntu-22.04"
  tools:
    python: "3.11"
sphinx:
  configuration: docs/conf.py
python:
  install:
    - method: pip
      path: .
      extra_requirements:
        - docs

Adding a page

Try adding a page. Remember to update your index.md table of contents.

Readme in docs

If you want to include your readme in your docs, you can add something like this:

MD 

```{include} ../README.md
:start-after: <!-- SPHINX-START -->
```

And you use <!-- SPHINX-START --> to mark where you want your docs part of your README.md to start (generally after the title and badges).

MARKDOWN 

# Example Package YOUR USERNAME HERE

<!-- SPHINX-START -->

`example-package-YOUR-USERNAME-HERE` is a simple Python library that contains a single function for rescaling arrays.

Selecting a nicer theme

A really nice theme, used by PyPA projects like pip and pipx, is furo. To use it, add this line to your conf.py:

PYTHON 

html_theme = "furo"

And add "furo" to your docs extra in your pyproject.toml.

Further reading

To see a more complete example, read Scientific-Python’s docs guide.

Key Points

  • Sphinx is great for documentation