Use Sphinx autosummary recursively to generate API documentation

Question

I want to use Sphinx's autosummary extension and templates to generate API docs recursively from docstrings. I want separate pages for each module, class, method, property and function. But it doesn't detect my templates at all. In fact, if I just remove the module.rst file from _templates/autosummary/, it renders the whole file exactly the same way as before. I've followed this SO question to the letter. If you're interested, the full repository is on GitHub.

Edit: It seems it does generate a different file, I had to delete docs/_autosummary for it to read the new template. However, now it generates a file with the sparse header and description header. It doesn't go into the {% if classes %} and {% if functions %} directives.

My directory structure is as follows:

• sparse
• docs
  • conf.py
  • index.rst
  • modules.rst
  • _templates/autosummary/module.rst

Here are the relevant files so far:

index.rst:

.. sparse documentation master file, created by
   sphinx-quickstart on Fri Dec 29 20:58:03 2017.
   You can adapt this file completely to your liking, but it should at least
   contain the root `toctree` directive.

Welcome to sparse's documentation!
==================================

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 2
   :caption: Contents:

   modules

Indices and tables
==================

* :ref:`genindex`
* :ref:`modindex`
* :ref:`search`

modules.rst:

API Reference
=============

Modules
-------

.. autosummary::
   :toctree: _autosummary

   sparse

_templates/autosummary/module.rst:

{{ fullname | escape | underline }}

Description
-----------

.. automodule:: {{ fullname | escape }}

{% if classes %}
Classes
-------
.. autosummary:
    :toctree: _autosummary

    {% for class in classes %}
        {{ class }}
    {% endfor %}

{% endif %}

{% if functions %}
Functions
---------
.. autosummary:
    :toctree: _autosummary

    {% for function in functions %}
        {{ function }}
    {% endfor %}

{% endif %}

Answer 1

I ended up needing the following files:

modules.rst:

API Reference
=============

.. rubric:: Modules

.. autosummary::
   :toctree: generated

   sparse

_templates/autosummary/module.rst:

{{ fullname | escape | underline }}

.. rubric:: Description

.. automodule:: {{ fullname }}

.. currentmodule:: {{ fullname }}

{% if classes %}
.. rubric:: Classes

.. autosummary::
    :toctree: .
    {% for class in classes %}
    {{ class }}
    {% endfor %}

{% endif %}

{% if functions %}
.. rubric:: Functions

.. autosummary::
    :toctree: .
    {% for function in functions %}
    {{ function }}
    {% endfor %}

{% endif %}

_templates/autosummary/class.rst:

{{ fullname | escape | underline}}

.. currentmodule:: {{ module }}

.. autoclass:: {{ objname }}

   {% block methods %}
   {% block attributes %}
   {% if attributes %}
   .. HACK -- the point here is that we don't want this to appear in the output, but the autosummary should still generate the pages.
      .. autosummary::
         :toctree:
      {% for item in all_attributes %}
         {%- if not item.startswith('_') %}
         {{ name }}.{{ item }}
         {%- endif -%}
      {%- endfor %}
   {% endif %}
   {% endblock %}

   {% if methods %}
   .. HACK -- the point here is that we don't want this to appear in the output, but the autosummary should still generate the pages.
      .. autosummary::
         :toctree:
      {% for item in all_methods %}
         {%- if not item.startswith('_') or item in ['__call__'] %}
         {{ name }}.{{ item }}
         {%- endif -%}
      {%- endfor %}
   {% endif %}
   {% endblock %}

_templates/autosummary/base.rst:

{{ fullname | escape | underline}}

.. currentmodule:: {{ module }}

.. auto{{ objtype }}:: {{ objname }}

I also needed to go to sphinx/ext/autosummary/generate.py and set imported_members=True in the function generate_autosummary_docs.

If you're not using numpydoc like me, you might need to remove the .. HACK directives.