Sphinx Graph

'Sphinx-Graph' is a sphinx extension for plain-text, VCS-friendly, requirements management.

Key Features

1. Vertex Directive: Define relationships between document elements.
2. Vertex Table: Generate summary tables of vertices.
3. Fingerprinting: Track changes and trigger reviews when parent elements are modified.
4. Customizable Layouts: Choose how vertices are displayed in your documentation.

With Sphinx-Graph you define relationships between items in a document. These items form a directed acyclic graph (DAG). The extension:

• Checks for cyclic references
• Populates items with links to their 'parents' or 'children'
• (Optionally) tracks a hash of each item to trigger reviews when any parents change

Getting Started

Install Sphinx-Graph using pip:

pip install sphinx-graph

Add it to your Sphinx project's conf.py:

extensions = [
   # ... other extensions ...
   "sphinx_graph",
]

Vertices

The core sphinx directive provided by this extension is a 'Vertex'. A Vertex directive can be used to define relationships between text elements.

.. vertex:: USR-001

   this is a user requirement.

   This user requirement forms the basis of derived system requirements. When it is rendered in a
   sphinx document it will be augmented with links to any child vertices.

.. vertex:: SYS-001
   :parents: USR-001

   this is system requirement of some sort.

   It is derived from a higher-level user requirement (USR-001).
   When it is rendered in a sphinx document, it will be augmented with links to its parent as well
   as any 'children'.

.. vertex:: SYS-002
   :parents: USR-001:iG91

   this is another system requirement. This time the link to USR-001 is tracking the 'fingerprint'
   of its parent.

   The fingerprint is a 4-character hash. If USR-001 is modified, then SYS-002 will fail the build
   until the fingerprint is updated (the build error provides the new fingerprint). This means that
   changing a Vertex will trigger a review of all dependent vertices.

Generating Summary Tables

The vertex-table directive generates summary tables of vertices:

.. vertex-table::
   :query: descendants

   uid = "REQ-001"

This will create a table showing REQ-001 and all its descendants.

Benefits of Sphinx-Graph

1. Version Control Friendly: Plain-text format works well with Git and other VCS.
2. Flexible: Define custom relationships between any elements in your documentation.
3. Traceable: Easily track dependencies and impact of changes.
4. Integrated: Seamlessly works within your Sphinx documentation.

Comparison with Similar Projects

Sphinx Graph is heavily inspired by Sphinx-Needs. Sphinx-Graph started life as a proof-of-concept refactor of Sphinx-Needs using modern python and strict type checking.

Sphinx-Needs:

• Sphinx-Needs is a more complex, feature-rich solution for requirements management, but may be heavy-weight for some use-cases.
• Sphinx-Graph is smaller, more streamlined, and uses modern Python with strict type checking.
• Sphinx-Graph can track 'suspect links' and force reviews when linked requirements are modified.

Doorstop:

• Doorstop is a command-line tool and Python API for managing requirements as text files.
• Like Sphinx-Graph, Doorstop is lightweight and version-control friendly.
• Sphinx-Graph integrates directly with Sphinx documentation, while Doorstop requires additional setup for documentation integration.
• Sphinx-Graph offers more flexible relationship types between items compared to Doorstop's hierarchical structure.

Traditional Requirements Management Tools (Doors, Enterprise Architect, etc):

• Sphinx-Graph doesn't require complex workflows or specific expertise to maintain.
• It's more cost-effective (it's free).
• Can be maintained in plain-text alongside the code.

For more information, see the docs.

or, build the local docs-

cd docs
uv run make html

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