gi-docgen 2026.1

GI-DocGen: Documentation tool for GObject-based libraries

GI-DocGen is a document generator for GObject-based libraries. GObject is the base type system of the GNOME project. GI-Docgen reuses the introspection data generated by GObject-based libraries to generate the API reference of these libraries, as well as other ancillary documentation.

Installation

Running GI-DocGen uninstalled

You can run GI-DocGen from its repository, by calling:

./gi-docgen.py

GI-DocGen will automatically detect this case.

Installing GI-DocGen via pip

To install GI-DocGen, you will need to have the following pieces of software available on your computer:

• Python 3.6, or later
• pip

Run the following command:

pip3 install --user gi-docgen

After running the command above, make sure to have the ~/.local/bin directory listed in your $PATH environment variable.

To update GI-DocGen, run the following command:

pip3 install --user --upgrade gi-docgen

Usage

First, read the GI-DocGen tutorial.

The documentation for GI-DocGen is available online.

The examples directory in the repository contains simple project files for various GNOME libraries.

Disclaimer

GI-DocGen is not a general purpose documentation tool for C libraries.

While GI-DocGen can be used to generate API references for most GObject/C libraries that expose introspection data, its main goal is to generate the reference for GTK and its immediate dependencies. Any and all attempts at making this tool more generic, or to cover more use cases, will be weighted heavily against its primary goal.

GI-DocGen is still in development. The recommended use of GI-DocGen is to add it as a sub-project to your Meson build system, and vendor it when releasing dist archives.

You should not depend on a system-wide installation until GI-DocGen is declared stable.

If you need a general purpose documentation tool, I strongly recommend:

• HotDoc
• Doxygen
• GTK-Doc

Copyright and Licensing terms

Copyright 2021 GNOME Foundation

GI-DocGen is released under the terms of the Apache License, version 2.0, or under the terms of the GNU General Public License, either version 3.0 or, at your option, any later version.