Sphinx (Documentation generator) Sphinx is a tool that translates a set of reStructuredText source files into various output formats, automatically producing cross-references, indices etc. The focus is on hand-written documentation, rather than auto-generated API docs. Though there is support for that kind of docs as well (which is intended to be freely mixed with hand-written content). If you need pure API docs have a look at Epydoc, which also understands reST. This requires pysetuptools, docutils, and Jinja2. Jinja2 circular dependencies warning: The DOCS=yes flag needs Sphinx to build python docs, it and needs Jinja2 but that needs Sphinx because you have set its DOCS=yes flag. If you really need the docs build Jinja2 without the DOCS=yes flag build Sphinx then rebuild Jinja2 with DOCS=yes. Incidentally, unless you are a developer, you don't normally need the DOCS=yes flag. Optionally, Pygments can be used at runtime, if installed.