How to generate Python documentation using Sphinx with zero configuration?

Question

We don\'t want to be maintaining documentation as well as the source code, which is evolving rapidly at the moment, yet Sphinx seems to require a frustrating amount of setup and

Answer 1

The sphinx-apidoc tool will autogenerate stubs for your modules, which might be what you want.

Instructions

• Make sure the autodoc module was enabled during Sphinx configuration.

  extensions = ['sphinx.ext.autodoc']
  

  within Sphinx's conf.py should do the trick.

• Make sure conf.py adjusts sys.path accordingly (see the comments at lines 16-19 in the file).

  sys.path.insert(0, os.path.abspath('/my/source/lives/here'))
  

• Run sphinx-apidoc to generate skeletons.

  sphinx-apidoc -o /my/docs/live/here /my/source/lives/here
  

• Rebuild the docs. If all goes well, you shouldn't get the following sort of warning:

  mymodule.rst:4: WARNING: autodoc can't import/find module 'mymodule'

• Your module RSTs should now be populated.