Skip to main content
  1. Posts/

pdoc: Generate API Documentation for Python Projects

··220 words·2 mins·

📚 Automatic Python Documentation with pdoc
#

Do you document your Python projects? pdoc makes it automatic and zero-config. ⚡

🔍 What is pdoc?
#

pdoc is a tool that automatically generates API documentation from your Python docstrings. No configuration. No complexity.

✨ Key Features
#

  • 📝 Plain Markdown — document with native Markdown
  • 🏷️ Type annotations — full support for type hints
  • 🔗 Automatic cross-links — identifiers are linked automatically
  • 🔄 Live-reload — integrated web server with live reloading
  • 🎨 Customizable templates — adapt the HTML to your style
  • 📖 numpydoc & Google-style — understands both docstring styles

💻 Basic Usage
#

# Install
pip install pdoc

# Generate documentation
pdoc your_python_module

# Or pointing to a file
pdoc ./my_project.py

🆚 vs Sphinx
#

pdoc is ideal for projects that need simple, elegant API documentation. For substantially more complex documentation needs, Sphinx remains the recommended option.

💡 Explanation in a nutshell
#

pdoc is a Python library that automatically generates API HTML documentation from your code’s docstrings, following the project’s module hierarchy. It requires no configuration, supports type annotations, creates cross-links between identifiers, and comes with an integrated live-reloading web server — perfect for documenting Python libraries without overhead.

More information at the link 👇

Also published on LinkedIn.
Juan Pedro Bretti Mandarano
Author
Juan Pedro Bretti Mandarano