Example Intersphinx Repository

This repository demonstrates a possible approach for maintaining a collection of internal, cross-referenced documentations.

It relies on Sphinx's intersphinx extension.

Idea revolves around having a shared repository with all inventories (indexes) for all projects. Those can then be reused and referenced by other documentations. Index is updated after build (every project must update its inventory file) and stored in a docker repository to reuse build and authentication structure that's already in place for it.

Try it out

• ./build.sh
• open ./example-intersphinx-project/build/html/index.html

Repository Structure

• example-standalone-docs contains minimal Sphinx documentation with glossary that defines a term
• shared-invs is a "dummy folder" that contains inventory artifacts. After build, objects.inv index file (required by intersphinx) is copied there (as other-project.inv)
• example-intersphinx-project references a term defined in example-standalone-docs. Take a look at:
  • index.rst to discover how a term can be referenced
  • conf.py to discover how intersphinx is set up

Build Process

Run ./build.sh.

The whole build relies on Docker, and utilises Apiary's base Sphinx image.

• Build example-standalone-docs
• Copy its inventory file to shared inventory folder
• Build minimalistic Docker image out of it
• Mount it as a volume to example-standalone-docs
• Build example-intersphinx-project
• In this case, remove interim shared-inventory container

The whole idea, of course, is for shared-inventory to be preserved in Docker registry.

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Dev notes

Scaffolding initial docs:

docker run -ti --rm -v $(pwd):/mnt/docs:rw -w /mnt/docs apiaryio/base-sphinx-doc-dev sphinx-quickstart