sphinx-source-tree

Ship entire project source code and directory tree with your Sphinx documentation.

Generate a reStructuredText (.rst) file that contains:

1. An ASCII directory tree of your project.
2. A literalinclude directive for every source file you select.

The result is a single .rst document ready to be included in a Sphinx documentation build, specifically for the llms.txt, providing full project context for LLMs.

Prerequisites

Python 3.10+

Installation

uv pip install sphinx-source-tree

Usage

Quick start

Run in your project root:

sphinx-source-tree

This writes docs/source_tree.rst with the full tree and literalinclude blocks for .js, .json, .md, .py, .rst, .toml, .yaml and .yml files.

Print to stdout instead:

sphinx-source-tree --stdout

CLI reference

sphinx-source-tree [OPTIONS]

-p, --project-root PATH

Project directory. Default: current directory.

-d, --depth N

Maximum tree depth. Default: 10.

-o, --output PATH

Output .rst file. Default: docs/source_tree.rst.

-e, --extensions EXT [EXT ...]

File suffixes to include via literalinclude. Default: .js .json .md .py .rst .toml .yaml .yml.

-i, --ignore PAT [PAT ...]

Glob patterns to ignore (matched against both the relative path and the bare file name).

-w, --whitelist DIR [DIR ...]

Restrict output to these directories. Ignored when --include-all is active.

--include-all / --no-include-all

Include everything regardless of whitelist. Default: on.

-t, --title TEXT

RST section title. Default: Project source-tree.

--linenos / --no-linenos

Attach :linenos: to literalinclude directives. Default: off.

--order PATH [PATH ...]

Explicit ordering for the literalinclude listing. The files listed here appear first, in the given sequence; all remaining collected files follow in their default sorted order. Has no effect on the ASCII directory tree.

--stdout

Write to stdout instead of the output file.

-V, --version

Show version and exit.

Configuration via pyproject.toml

All CLI options (except --stdout and --version) can be set under [tool.sphinx-source-tree] in your project's pyproject.toml. CLI arguments always take precedence.

Single-file example:

[tool.sphinx-source-tree]
depth = 4
output = "docs/source_tree.rst"
extensions = [".py", ".rst", ".toml"]
ignore = ["__pycache__", "*.pyc", ".git", "*.egg-info"]
whitelist = ["src", "docs"]
include-all = false
title = "Source listing"
linenos = true
extra-languages = {".vue" = "vue", ".svelte" = "svelte"}
order = ["README.rst", "pyproject.toml", "src/app.py"]

Key names use hyphens (include-all) to follow TOML/PEP 621 convention; they are normalised internally.

Multiple output files

You can generate several .rst files in one run by adding [[tool.sphinx-source-tree.files]] entries. Top-level settings act as shared defaults; each entry can override any of them.

[tool.sphinx-source-tree]
# Shared defaults — applied to every file unless overridden
depth = 10
ignore = ["__pycache__", "*.pyc", ".git", "*.egg-info"]
linenos = false

[[tool.sphinx-source-tree.files]]
output = "docs/source_tree.rst"
title = "Full project source"
# inherits depth, ignore, linenos from the section above

[[tool.sphinx-source-tree.files]]
output = "docs/api_tree.rst"
title = "API source"
extensions = [".py"]
whitelist = ["src"]
include-all = false
depth = 5  # overrides the shared default

[[tool.sphinx-source-tree.files]]
output = "docs/docs_tree.rst"
title = "Documentation files"
extensions = [".rst", ".md"]
whitelist = ["docs"]
include-all = false

The merge priority is: built-in defaults < top-level ``[tool.sphinx-source-tree]`` < per-file ``[[…files]]`` entry < CLI arguments.

When no [[files]] entries are present the tool behaves exactly as before, so existing configurations are fully backward compatible.

Controlling listing order

By default, literalinclude blocks are emitted in alphabetical order. The order option lets you pin specific files to the top of the listing while leaving all other files in their default sorted order.

Note

order affects only the literalinclude source-code listing. The ASCII directory tree is always rendered in its natural sorted order and is unaffected by this setting.

Via pyproject.toml (top-level)

The top-level order list is shared by all output files (or inherited by [[files]] entries that do not set their own):

[tool.sphinx-source-tree]
order = [
    "README.rst",
    "pyproject.toml",
    "src/app.py",
]

Via [[tool.sphinx-source-tree.files]]

Each [[files]] entry can define its own order, which overrides the top-level value for that output file only:

[tool.sphinx-source-tree]
ignore = ["__pycache__", "*.pyc"]

[[tool.sphinx-source-tree.files]]
output = "docs/source_tree.rst"
title = "Full project source"
# no order — uses default alphabetical listing

[[tool.sphinx-source-tree.files]]
output = "docs/llm_tree.rst"
title = "Source for LLMs"
order = ["src/core.py", "src/models.py", "src/utils.py"]

Via the CLI

sphinx-source-tree --order src/core.py src/models.py src/utils.py

Via the Python API

Pass the order keyword argument to generate():

from pathlib import Path
from sphinx_source_tree import generate

rst = generate(
    project_root=Path("."),
    output=Path("docs/source_tree_ordered.rst"),
    extensions=[".py", ".rst"],
    order=[
        "README.rst",
        "src/app.py",
    ],
)
Path("docs/source_tree_ordered.rst").write_text(rst)

Files listed in order that do not match any collected file (because they are excluded by extension or ignore rules, or simply do not exist) emit a warning to stderr and are silently skipped.

Per-file inclusion options

You can restrict how much of each file is shown by attaching Sphinx literalinclude range options to individual files. The following options are supported:

• :lines: — explicit line numbers or ranges (e.g. 1-20, 30)
• :start-at: — include from the first line that contains the marker
• :start-after: — include from the line after the marker
• :end-before: — include up to, but not including, the marker line
• :end-at: — include up to and including the marker line

Via pyproject.toml (flat)

Add a [tool.sphinx-source-tree.file-options] table whose keys are file paths relative to the project root. This mapping is used by all output files that do not select a named profile:

[tool.sphinx-source-tree.file-options]
"src/app.py" = {"end-before" = "# *** Tests ***"}
"src/utils.py" = {"start-after" = "# -- public API --"}
"src/models.py" = {"lines" = "1-60"}

This produces literalinclude blocks such as:

.. literalinclude:: ../src/app.py
   :language: python
   :caption: src/app.py
   :end-before: # *** Tests ***

Option keys may be written with either hyphens (end-before) or underscores (end_before); both are accepted and normalised to the hyphenated form that Sphinx expects. Unknown option keys emit a warning to stderr and are ignored.

Via pyproject.toml (named profiles)

When you need different inclusion rules for different output files — for example a full source tree and a compact one for LLMs — define named profiles under [tool.sphinx-source-tree.file-options-profiles] and select one per [[files]] entry with file-options-profile:

[tool.sphinx-source-tree]
ignore = ["__pycache__", "*.pyc", ".git"]

# "full" profile — no restrictions (empty table = include everything)
[tool.sphinx-source-tree.file-options-profiles.full]

# "compact" profile — trim each file at its test boundary
[tool.sphinx-source-tree.file-options-profiles.compact]
"src/app.py" = {"end-before" = "# ********** Tests **********"}
"src/models.py" = {"end-before" = "# ********** Tests **********"}
"src/utils.py" = {"lines" = "1-60"}

[[tool.sphinx-source-tree.files]]
output = "docs/source_tree_full.rst"
title = "Full project source"
file-options-profile = "full"

[[tool.sphinx-source-tree.files]]
output = "docs/source_tree.rst"
title = "Compact source for LLMs"
file-options-profile = "compact"

Resolution order:

1. If file-options-profile names a key in file-options-profiles, that profile's mapping is used.
2. If the name is not found, a warning is printed to stderr and the tool falls back to the top-level file-options table.
3. If no profile is specified, the top-level file-options table is used directly (fully backward compatible).

Via the Python API

Pass the file_options keyword argument to generate() with the already-resolved mapping for that output file. Profile selection happens in _generate_from_cfg; when calling generate() directly simply pass whichever dict applies:

from pathlib import Path
from sphinx_source_tree import generate

compact_options = {
    "src/app.py": {"end-before": "# *** Tests ***"},
    "src/utils.py": {"start-after": "# -- public API --"},
}

rst = generate(
    project_root=Path("."),
    output=Path("docs/source_tree2.rst"),
    file_options=compact_options,
)

Absolute paths are also accepted as keys and are resolved relative to project_root automatically.

Python API

You can also call the generator from Python:

from pathlib import Path
from sphinx_source_tree import generate

rst = generate(
    project_root=Path("."),
    output=Path("docs/source_tree1.rst"),
    depth=5,
    extensions=[".py", ".rst"],
    ignore=["__pycache__", "*.pyc"],
    title="My project source",
)
Path("docs/source_tree.rst").write_text(rst)

generate() returns the RST content as a string and never writes to disk, so you can post-process or redirect as needed.

Lower-level helpers are also importable:

• build_tree() -- ASCII tree string.
• collect_files() -- list of Path objects to include.
• detect_language() -- suffix-to-Sphinx-language mapping.
• load_config() -- read [tool.sphinx-source-tree] from pyproject.toml.

Documentation

• Documentation is available on Read the Docs.

Tests

Run the tests:

pytest -vvv

Writing documentation

Keep the following hierarchy.

=====
title
=====

header
======

sub-header
----------

sub-sub-header
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

sub-sub-sub-header
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

sub-sub-sub-sub-header
++++++++++++++++++++++

sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-header
**************************

License

MIT

Support

For security issues contact me at the e-mail given in the Author section.

For overall issues, go to GitHub.

Author

Artur Barseghyan <artur.barseghyan@gmail.com>