daml/docs/README.md

# DAML SDK documentation

This directory contains all of the documentation that gets published to docs.daml.com.

## Writing documentation

The docs are written in [reStructuredText](http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html), built using [Sphinx](http://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/master/).

To edit documentation:

- Same as code: find the file, edit it on a branch, make a PR.
- For new files, best to copy existing ones, to get the formatting right. 

  Don't forget you need to add your file to the `toctree` in `/docs/source/index.rst` *and* `/docs/configs/pdf/index.rst`.
- **Make sure you preview** before you push.

### Generated documentation

Not all of our docs are in rst files: some get generated. They are:

- the ledger API proto docs
- the DAML standard library reference
- the Java bindings reference

To edit those docs, edit the content inside the code source.

### Previewing

To preview the full docs, as deployed to docs.daml.com,run `scripts/preview.sh`.

To live-preview the docs, run `scripts/live-preview.sh`. The script accepts two flags:

- `--pdf` includes the PDF documentation
- `--gen` includes the generated documentation

Note that neither PDF, not generated docs will benefit from live updates. To update generated docs or PDF docs, quit the preview script with CTRL+C and start it again.

### Style conventions

For terminology and other style questions, follow the [main DA documentation style guide](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dwE45gyxWXqlr4VTq9mJVnmSyBQ8V30ItucWBbCbViQ/edit).

A few pieces of RST guidance:

If you’re not familiar, it’s really worth reading the [primer](http://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/master/usage/restructuredtext/basics.html) for the basic syntax (emphasis, code text, lists, tables, images, comments, etc).
- Keep paragraphs all on the same line (no newlines/line breaks).
- Heading underlines in this hierarchical order:

  ```
  ######
  ******
  ======
  ------
  ^^^^^^
  """"""
  ```
- For internal links, use the `doc` directive where you can. 
- For bullet points (unordered lists), use `-` (dashes).
- For code blocks, use the `literalinclude` directive if you can: it's best to source code from files that we test whether they compile.

## How the docs get built

The docs get built as part of the main `daml` repo CI, to make sure we don't break any links or do anything else that would cause Sphinx warnings.

## Publishing docs

### Prerequisites

To publish to the docs, you'll need to:

- Get access to the S3 bucket and Cloudfront (DA only).
- Create a directory to run everything from. Mine is `s3-env`.
- Install [AWS Google Auth tool](https://digitalasset.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/IS/pages/719750045/AWS+Google+Auth) (DA only, internal link).
- Run the following:

```
# cd to the directory you created above
pipenv --python 3.6
pipenv install awscli
pipenv install aws-google-auth
```

### Once setup is done

After you've gone through the above steps, you can publish:

```
# if you're not already in it, cd to the directory you created above
pipenv shell
 # use google account password. Be fast!
aws-google-auth -u <yourname>@digitalasset.com
# cd to daml repo
# this bit takes a while. If it asks you about overwriting files, say yes
docs/scripts/publish.sh
 exit
```

 To publish to the staging website instead, use `docs/scripts/publish.sh --stage`.

## Testing code in docs

TBD