Getting Started

Installation

Directly install by using:

via pip

pip install sphinx-llms-txt

via conda:

conda install -c conda-forge sphinx-llms-txt

Usage

Add the extension to your Sphinx configuration (conf.py):

extensions = [
    'sphinx_llms_txt',
]

After the HTML finishes building, sphinx-llms-txt will output the location of the output files:

sphinx-llms-txt: Created /path/to/_build/html/llms-full.txt with 45 sources and 6879 lines
sphinx-llms-txt: created /path/to/_build/html/llms.txt

Choosing an Output Format

By default, sphinx-llms-txt requires no additional configuration and links to raw reStructuredText source files created by the HTML builder. For optimal LLM support, see the alternative builders below and the CMake workflow for setup.

Output Format Comparison

	Default	Markdown	reStructuredText
Setup	No config	CMake [1]	CMake
Builder	Native [2]	sphinx-markdown-builder	sphinxcontrib-restbuilder
Format	Raw reStructuredText source	Rendered Markdown [5]	Rendered reStructuredText [5]
LLM Readability	Good - preserves structure for simple syntax	Excellent - native LLM format	Good - Can provide more structured content
Key Advantage	Zero setup required	More compact (less input tokens)	Can preserve Sphinx semantics
Key Disadvantage	Raw directives won’t be parsed [3]	Loses structure from complex directives	Can lose structure from complex directives
llms-full.txt support	Supported with above caveats	Pending support [4]	Pending support [4]

Footnotes

[1]

See sphinx-llm as an alternative for CMake-free Markdown builds.

[2]

Uses raw _sources/ files created by Sphinx’s HTML builder with some minor enhancements.

[3]

Directives like autodoc will appear as raw directive syntax rather than the extracted docstrings.

[4] (1,2)

PRs that add llms-full.txt concatenation support have yet to be released.

[5] (1,2)

Directives are expanded and processed before output, so content like autodoc docstrings will be included.