Documentation README

How to Add Documentation

For new features and pull requests, maintainers should make sure that the contributor has added an explanation for their changes in the docs folder before merging the PR.

Contributors should write an addition to a current file or add a new file to the docs/source/ folder that explains what their feature is and how it works. If needed, they may also add a link to more technical README’s located nearer to the code.

Whenever additions are made to the docs, make sure to update the index.rst in whichever folder the file has been added, and build the docs locally to confirm they work (TODO: add the sphinx-build command to our CI/CD flow).

For example, if I wanted to add another file to the indy-sdk docs/ folder named glossary.md, I would create the file, and then add a reference to it in the index.rst:

.. toctree::
  :maxdepth: 1
  :hidden:

  getting-started/index.rst
  ...
  other files
  ...
  glossary.md                   .. <-- this is your new file!

To add a new file to a subfolder, simply update the subfolder’s index.rst with the relative link to your file.

If you’d like to link to a file outside of the docs/ folder, you’ll need to provide an external github link (this is by design, to keep our docs organized into a single folder)

Building the docs on your machine

Here are the quick steps to achieve this on a local machine without depending on ReadTheDocs. Note: Instructions may differ depending on your OS. Run these commands within the repository folder

pip install Sphinx
pip install sphinx_rtd_theme
pip install recommonmark==0.4.0
cd docs/source # Be in this directory. Makefile sits there.
make html

This will generate all the html files in docs/source/_build/html which you can then browse locally in your browser. Every time you make a change to the documentation you will need to rerun make html.

Additional Instructions

This section is to be used for repo maintainers to add additional documentation guidelines or instructions.