Documentation Contributor Guide¶

Locations¶

StarlingX documentation consists of several types of manuals and is found in the stx-docs and stx-specs projects (i.e. repositories).

You can clone these repositories by:

$ git clone https://git.starlingx.io/stx-docs
$ git clone https://get-starlingx.io/stx-specs

These projects contain hierarchy that organizes the documentation by topic:

• Installation Guide
  • Describes how to install StarlingX onto Bare Metal or into a virtual environment. This guide is located in stx-docs/doc/source/installation_guide.
• Developer Guide
  • Describes how to build a StarlingX ISO image from the “master” branch. This guide is located in stx-docs/doc/source/developer_guide.
• Project Specifications
  • Describes specifications, specification templates, and processes for submitting a specification. This guide is located in stx-specs/doc/source.
• REST API Reference
  • Describes StarlingX APIs. The landing page for the API Reference manuals is located in stx-docs/doc/source/api-ref. The RST files that provide content to the API Reference manuals are located in stx-docs/api-ref/source.
• Release Notes
  • Provides release-specific information. This guide is located in stx-docs/doc/source/releasenotes.
• Contribute
  • Provides guides on how to contribute to StarlingX API documentation, Release Notes, and general documentation. These guides are located in stx-docs/doc/source/contributor.

Directory Structures¶

Directory structures vary depending on the type of documentation involved. Basically, you can think of the structure as one or more RST files per book. A simple book consists of a single index.rst file. A more complicated book could consist of an index.rst file as the book’s landing page and a set of additional RST files for major sections of the book.

Following is the structure of the stx-docs repository:

.
├── api-ref
│   └── source
│       ├── api-ref-blockstorage-v2-cgcs-ext.rst
│       ├── api-ref-compute-v2-cgcs-ext.rst
│       ├── api-ref-image-v2-cgcs-ext.rst
│       ├── api-ref-networking-v2-cgcs-ext.rst
│       ├── conf.py
│       └── index.rst
├── doc
│   └── source
│       ├── api-ref
│       │   └── index.rst
│       ├── conf.py
│       ├── contributor
│       │   ├── api_contribute_guide.rst
│       │   ├── doc_contribute_guide.rst
│       │   ├── index.rst
│       │   └── release_note_contribute_guide.rst
│       ├── developer_guide
│       │   └── index.rst
│       ├── index.rst
│       ├── installation_guide
│       │   ├── controller_storage.rst
│       │   ├── dedicated_storage.rst
│       │   ├── duplex.rst
│       │   ├── index.rst
│       │   ├── installation_libvirt_qemu.rst
│       │   └── simplex.rst
│       └── releasenotes
│           └── index.rst
├── README.rst
├── test-requirements.txt
└── tox.ini

The structure for the API Reference documentation deserves some extra explanation. Most RST files for the API Reference content reside in top-level StarlingX repositories (e.g. stx-metal, stx-config, and so forth). However, four API Reference RST files do not: “Block Storage”, “Compute”, “Image”, and “Network”. These RST files reside in stx-docs/api-ref/source as seen in the previous tree diagram. While the stx-docs/api-ref/source/index.rst file does exist along side these other four RST files, it does so only because the Sphinx process needs that index file to build out the final web documentation tree. The actual landing page (content) for the API Reference documents is in the stx-docs/doc/source/api-ref/index.rst file.

Here is the structure of the stx-specs project:

.
├── doc
│   └── source
│       ├── conf.py
│       ├── index.rst
│       └── specs
│           ├── 2019.03
│           │   ├── approved -> ../../../../specs/2019.03/approved
│           │   ├── implemented -> ../../../../specs/2019.03/implemented
│           │   ├── index.rst
│           │   └── template.rst -> ../../../../specs/2019.03/approved/STX_Example_Spec.rst
│           └── instructions.rst -> ../../../specs/instructions.rst
├── README.rst
├── specs
│   ├── 2019.03
│   │   ├── approved
│   │   │   ├── containerization-2002840-local-docker-registry.rst
│   │   │   ├── containerization-2002843-kubernetes-platform-support.rst
│   │   │   ├── containerization_2003907_docker-image-generation.rst
│   │   │   ├── containerization-2003908-armada-integration.rst
│   │   │   ├── containerization-2003909-helm-chart-overrides.rst
│   │   │   ├── containerization-2003910-system-deployment-of-containerized-openstack-infrastructure.rst
│   │   │   ├── mirror_2003906_enable_external_mirror.rst
│   │   │   ├── multi-os-2003768-refactor-init-config-patches.rst
│   │   │   ├── multi-os-2004039-variable-substitution.rst
│   │   │   ├── standardize-makefiles-for-multi-os.rst
│   │   │   ├── STX_Example_Spec.rst
│   │   │   └── sysinv_2002950-decouple-system-configuration-from-inventory.rst
│   │   └── implemented
│   │       └── _placeholder.rst
│   ├── approved
│   │   └── containerization-2002844-CEPH-persistent-storage-backend-for-Kubernetes.rst
│   ├── instructions.rst
│   └── STX_Example_Spec.rst -> 2019.03/approved/STX_Example_Spec.rst
├── test-requirements.txt
└── tox.ini

The stx-specs/docs/source/index.rst file is the main landing page for the StarlingX specifications page (<https://docs.starlingx.io/specs/index.html>`_).

The stx-specs/specs/2019.03 area contains the RST files for approved and implemented specs.

Updating a Manual¶

If you need to update an existing manual, you need to find the appropriate RST source file, make your modifications, test them (i.e. build the manual), and then submit the changes to Gerrit for approval.

As an example, suppose you wanted to update the Developer Guide.

The structure for the Developer Guide is as follows:

├── doc
│   └── source
│       ├── developer_guide
│       │   └── index.rst

The content for the manual exists in the index.rst file. This file is the landing page and all the content.

Suppose you needed to update a more complicated manual such as the Installation Guide. That manual’s source structure is as follows:

├── doc
│   └── source
│       ├── installation_guide
│       │   ├── controller_storage.rst
│       │   ├── dedicated_storage.rst
│       │   ├── duplex.rst
│       │   ├── index.rst
│       │   ├── installation_libvirt_qemu.rst
│       │   └── simplex.rst

The index.rst file is the landing page plus the main content for the Installation Guide. The remaining five RST files hold additional content for the guide accessed through links from the landing page.

Creating a Manual¶

Creating a new manual for stx-docs involves minimally providing the index.rst file. If the manual is more complex with additional content outside of the index.rst file, you need to provide additional RST files as well.

As an example, consider a new manual that resides in stx-docs/doc/source/my-guide. Furthermore, suppose this manual’s index.rst file contained two links to additional complicated topics: “Topic 1” and “Topic 2”.

The content for the new manual exists in three files:

• stx-docs/doc/source/my-guide/index.rst**
• stx-docs/doc/source/my-guide/topic_1.rst**
• stx-docs/doc/source/my-guide/topic_2.rst**

Following shows the hierarchy:

├── doc
│   └── source
│       ├── my_guide
│       │   ├── index.rst
│       │   ├── topic_1.rst
│       │   ├── topic_2.rst

Creating the Index File¶

The index.rst file provides captioning, a brief description of the document, and the table-of-contents (TOC) structure with instructions on how to display or hide sub-topics.

The syntax of the index.rst file is fixed. Following shows the sample index.rst file for the new guide:

========
My Guide
========

The new guide.

- :ref:`Topic 1 <topic_1>`
- :ref:`Topic 2 <topic_2>`

.. toctree::
   :hidden:

   topic_1
   topic_2

Following are explanations for each of the four areas of the index.rst file:

• Reference title: Literal title that is used in the rendered document. In this case it is “My Guide”.
• Reference summary: Literal summary of the rendered document. In this case it is “The new guide.”
• Table-of-Contents tree structure and sub-topic parameters: The directive to create a TOC and to specify the embedded topic links should remain hidden. If you want sub-topics to be part of the TOC, use the “:maxdepth: x” directive where “x” is the depth you desire for sub-topics in the TOC.
• RST source file root name: The source files to use as content. In this case, the file references are “topic_1” and “topic_2”. These reference the topic_1.rst and topic_2.rst files in the same folder as the index.rst file.

Integrating the New Guide Into the Documentation Set¶

The previous section described how you can provide the files you need to create a new guide. This section describes how you can get the new guide to be part of the TOC StarlingX uses when displaying all the documentation (i.e. StarlingX Documentation).

The stx-docs/doc/source/index.rst file contains the structure that defines the StarlingX Documentation landing page. Inside the file, is a “Sections” area that lists the documents that appear in the TOC. Following is the updated file that shows the example guide included. The “my_guide/index” line ensures the new guide is included in the TOC along with the existing guides:

--------
Sections
--------

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 1

   installation_guide/index
   developer_guide/index
   Project Specifications <https://docs.starlingx.io/specs/>
   api-ref/index
   releasenotes/index
   contributor/index
   my_guide/index

Building the Documentation¶

To build the documentation locally in HTML format, use the following command:

$ tox -e docs

The resulting directories and HTML files looks like:

stx-docs/doc/
├── build
│   ├── doctrees
│   │   ├── api-ref
│   │   │   └── index.doctree
│   │   ├── contributor
│   │   │   ├── api_contribute_guide.doctree
│   │   │   ├── doc_contribute_guide.doctree
│   │   │   ├── index.doctree
│   │   │   └── release_note_contribute_guide.doctree
│   │   ├── developer_guide
│   │   │   └── index.doctree
│   │   ├── environment.pickle
│   │   ├── index.doctree
│   │   ├── installation_guide
│   │   │   ├── controller_storage.doctree
│   │   │   ├── dedicated_storage.doctree
│   │   │   ├── duplex.doctree
│   │   │   ├── index.doctree
│   │   │   ├── installation_libvirt_qemu.doctree
│   │   │   └── simplex.doctree
│   │   ├── my_guide
│   │   │   ├── index.doctree
│   │   │   ├── topic_1.doctree
│   │   │   ├── topic_2.doctree
│   │   └── releasenotes
│   │       └── index.doctree
│   └── html
│       ├── api-ref
│       │   └── index.html
│       ├── contributor
│       │   ├── api_contribute_guide.html
│       │   ├── doc_contribute_guide.html
│       │   ├── index.html
│       │   └── release_note_contribute_guide.html
│       ├── developer_guide
│       │   └── index.html
│       ├── genindex.html
│       ├── index.html
│       ├── installation_guide
│       │   ├── controller_storage.html
│       │   ├── dedicated_storage.html
│       │   ├── duplex.html
│       │   ├── index.html
│       │   ├── installation_libvirt_qemu.html
│       │   └── simplex.html
│       ├── my_guide
│       │   ├── index.html
│       │   ├── topic_1.html
│       │   ├── topic_2.html
│       ├── objects.inv
│       ├── releasenotes
│       │   └── index.html
│       ├── search.html
│       ├── searchindex.js
│       ├── _sources
│       │   ├── api-ref
│       │   │   └── index.rst.txt
│       │   ├── contributor
│       │   │   ├── api_contribute_guide.rst.txt
│       │   │   ├── doc_contribute_guide.rst.txt
│       │   │   ├── index.rst.txt
│       │   │   └── release_note_contribute_guide.rst.txt
│       │   ├── developer_guide
│       │   │   └── index.rst.txt
│       │   ├── index.rst.txt
│       │   ├── installation_guide
│       │   │   ├── controller_storage.rst.txt
│       │   │   ├── dedicated_storage.rst.txt
│       │   │   ├── duplex.rst.txt
│       │   │   ├── index.rst.txt
│       │   │   ├── installation_libvirt_qemu.rst.txt
│       │   │   └── simplex.rst.txt
│       │   ├── my_guide
│       │   │   ├── index.rst.txt
│       │   │   ├── topic_1.rst.txt
│       │   │   ├── topic_2.rst.txt
│       │   │   ├── topic_3.rst.txt
│       │   │   ├── topic_4.rst.txt
│       │   │   └── topic_5.rst.txt
│       │   └── releasenotes
│       │       └── index.rst.txt
│       └── _static

  ...

├── Makefile
├── requirements.txt
├── setup.cfg
├── setup.py

Viewing the Rendered Documentation¶

To view the rendered document in a browser, open up the index.html file in your browser. For the new example guide, the file is stx-docs/doc/build/my_guide/index.html.

NOTE: The PDF build uses a different tox environment and is currently not supported for StarlingX.