How To Add Sphinx Docs to a Repo#

This how-to will help you setup the basic skeleton for sphinx docs in your repo in a manner that is standard to the Open edX Project.

Assumptions#

You know how to use Git
You are familiar enough with make to use it.
You are familiar with basic python development (pip, virtualenvs, etc.)

Steps#

Add a docs.in file in the requirements folder with the following content.

# Requirements to build the documentation.
-c constraints.txt

sphinx
sphinx-book-theme
sphinx-copybutton
sphinx-autobuild
sphinxcontrib-mermaid
sphinxcontrib-contentui

Add docs.in to the upgrade command in your Makefile
Run make upgrade to generate requirements/docs.txt
pip install -r requirements/docs.txt
Make a docs folder at the root of your repo and cd into it.

Note

If you already have a docs repo with RST, move it aside for now, and you can move the RST files into the newly generated sphinx project once it has been setup.
```
mkdir docs
cd docs
```

Generate a basic sphinx doc skeleton.

sphinx-quickstart --no-batchfile --extensions sphinxcontrib.contentui --extensions sphinx_copybutton --extensions sphinx.ext.graphviz --extensions sphinxcontrib.mermaid --no-sep -a "Open edX Community" -l "en" --release latest

Make sure the build works.
```
make html
```
This should generate an html file at _build/html/index.html
Update the following settings in docs/conf.py
```
html_theme = 'sphinx_book_theme'
```

Add the following settings to docs/conf.py

Note

You’ll have to update at least the repository_url and repository_branch settings in html_theme_options but you should review the rest of the settings as well.

import os

html_theme_options = {

    "repository_url": TODO: Add a URL Here,
    "repository_branch": TODO: Add the correct branch here,
    "path_to_docs": "docs/",
    "logo_only": True,
    "home_page_in_toc": True,
    "use_repository_button": True,
    "use_issues_button": True,
    "use_edit_page_button": True,
    "extra_footer": """
        <a rel="license" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">
            <img
                alt="Creative Commons License"
                style="border-width:0"
                src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/4.0/80x15.png">
        </a>
        <br>
        These works by
            <a
                xmlns:cc="https://creativecommons.org/ns#"
                href="https://openedx.org"
                property="cc:attributionName"
                rel="cc:attributionURL"
            >The Center for Reimagining Learning</a>
        are licensed under a
            <a
                rel="license"
                href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
            >Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>.
    """
}

# Note the logo won't show up properly yet because there is an upstream
# bug in the theme that needs to be fixed first.
# If you'd like you can temporarily copy the logo file to your `_static`
# directory.
html_logo = "https://logos.openedx.org/open-edx-logo-color.png"
html_favicon = "https://logos.openedx.org/open-edx-favicon.ico"

# Set the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE if it's not set.
if not os.environ.get('DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'):
   os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'test_utils.test_settings'

Run the build again to make sure youve got the standard logos and footers setup.
```
make html
```

Now that the basic build works you’re ready to create the skeleton for documentation based on diataxis.

cd docs/
mkdir -p {concepts,how-tos,quickstarts,reference,decisions}
touch {concepts,how-tos,quickstarts,reference,decisions}/index.rst

Add a title to each index.rst
Start wiriting documentation!

How To Add Sphinx Docs to a Repo

Contents

How To Add Sphinx Docs to a Repo#

Assumptions#

Steps#