sphinx-build

Build HTML documentation

$ sphinx-build -b html [source/] [build/html]

$ sphinx-build -b latex [source/] [build/latex]

$ sphinx-build -E -b html [source/] [build/html]

$ sphinx-build -v -b html [source/] [build/html]

$ sphinx-build -W -b html [source/] [build/html]

$ sphinx-build -b linkcheck [source/] [build/linkcheck]

$ sphinx-build -D [key=value] -b html [source/] [build/]

sphinx-build [-b builder] [options] sourcedir outputdir

sphinx-build is the build command for Sphinx, the standard documentation generator for Python projects. It reads reStructuredText or MyST Markdown source files and produces output in various formats including HTML websites, LaTeX/PDF documents, ePub ebooks, and Unix man pages.
The build process is controlled by a conf.py configuration file in the source directory, which defines the project name, theme, enabled extensions, and output settings. Sphinx supports automatic cross-referencing between documents, index generation, and code syntax highlighting. The autodoc extension can extract documentation directly from Python docstrings.
Multiple builders are available, selected with the -b flag. Incremental builds only process changed files by default; the -E flag forces a complete rebuild. Parallel building with -j speeds up large documentation projects.

-b BUILDER

Output format builder.

Rebuild all files.

Rebuild changed files.

Warnings as errors.

Verbose output.

Override config.

Config directory.

Parallel jobs.

conf.py

Sphinx configuration file in the source directory defining project metadata, theme, extensions, template paths, and build options.

Environment variable for passing additional options to sphinx-build when invoked through Makefiles.

html - HTML pages
latex - LaTeX/PDF
epub - EPUB ebook
man - Man pages
linkcheck - Check links

Requires Python. reStructuredText learning curve. Large projects slow to build.

Sphinx was created by Georg Brandl for Python documentation. Released in 2008, it became the standard for Python project documentation.

make(1), rst2html(1), doxygen(1)