SPHINX-QUICKSTART(1)

✨ SPHINX-QUICKSTART ✨

okay bestie, so this is sphinx-quickstart — it lives in the Sphinx manual, section 1, and it's literally the cutest little onboarding wizard for your docs 💖

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🌸 NAME 🌸

sphinx-quickstart — the Sphinx documentation template generator 🎀 (yes she makes you an entire docs directory, no cap)

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

sphinx-quickstart

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

So sphinx-quickstart is an interactive tool, right? It asks you a bunch of questions about your project, and then — slay — it generates a whole complete documentation directory plus a sample Makefile for you to use with sphinx-build(1). It's giving "personal assistant but make it a CLI". 👑

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -q, --quiet — Quiet mode, aka skip the whole interactive wizard for specifying options. ⚠️ but heads up: this option requires -p, -a and -v options, so don't come in quiet with nothing to say, she'll be upset.
• -h, --help, --version — shows you the usage summary, or the Sphinx version. iykyk 🫶

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🎀 Structure Options 🎀

• --sep — if you specify this, source and build directories get separated. two households, both alike in dignity.
• --no-sep — if you specify this, the build directory gets created under the source directory. cozy nesting vibes 🪺
• --dot=DOT — inside the root directory, two more directories get created: _templates for your custom HTML templates, and _static for custom stylesheets and other static files. you can enter another prefix (like .) to replace the underscore. so _ ➡️ . if that's your thing ✨

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💜 Project Basic Options 💜

• -p PROJECT, --project=PROJECT — the project name gets set (see project).
• -a AUTHOR, --author=AUTHOR — author names (see copyright).
• -v VERSION — version of the project (see version).
• -r RELEASE, --release=RELEASE — release of the project (see release).
• -l LANGUAGE, --language=LANGUAGE — document language (see language).
• --suffix=SUFFIX — source file suffix (see source_suffix).
• --master=MASTER — master document name (see root_doc).

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🌈 Extension Options 🌈

bestie these are all just "turn on the extension" buttons, no cap:

• --ext-autodoc — enable the sphinx.ext.autodoc extension.
• --ext-doctest — enable the sphinx.ext.doctest extension.
• --ext-intersphinx — enable the sphinx.ext.intersphinx extension.
• --ext-todo — enable the sphinx.ext.todo extension.
• --ext-coverage — enable the sphinx.ext.coverage extension.
• --ext-imgmath — enable the sphinx.ext.imgmath extension.
• --ext-mathjax — enable the sphinx.ext.mathjax extension.
• --ext-ifconfig — enable the sphinx.ext.ifconfig extension.
• --ext-viewcode — enable the sphinx.ext.viewcode extension.
• --ext-githubpages — enable the sphinx.ext.githubpages extension.
• --extensions=EXTENSIONS — enable arbitrary extensions. go wild, main character ✨

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🍓 Makefile and Batchfile Creation Options 🍓

• --use-make-mode (-m), --no-use-make-mode (-M) — the Makefile/make.bat uses (or doesn't use) make-mode. default is use, which generates a more concise Makefile/make.bat.
  • Changed in version 1.5: make-mode is default.
  • Changed in version 7.3: support for disabling the make-mode will be removed in Sphinx 8.
  • Removed in version 8.0: the --no-use-make-mode option. the --use-make-mode now has no effect. 💀 rip.
• --makefile, --no-makefile — create (or not create) makefile.
• --batchfile, --no-batchfile — create (or not create) batchfile.

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🧚 Project templating 🧚

Added in version 1.5: Project templating options for sphinx-quickstart ✨

• -t, --templatedir=TEMPLATEDIR — template directory for template files. you can modify the templates of the sphinx project files that get generated by quickstart. these Jinja2 template files are allowed:
  • root_doc.rst.jinja
  • conf.py.jinja
  • Makefile.jinja
  • Makefile.new.jinja
  • make.bat.jinja
  • make.bat.new.jinja

for the details, please refer to the system template files Sphinx provides. (sphinx/templates/quickstart) 🫶

• -d NAME=VALUE — define a template variable.

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

sphinx-build(1)

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📜 Copyright 📜

2007-2026, the Sphinx developers

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okay that's the whole page bestie, you ate 💅 version 9.1.0, dated Sep 15, 2026 — now go generate some docs and be iconic. periodt. 🌟