sdv-doc-waterloo 0.12.2

Waterloo - Docstring Format and Tools

README

On PyPI

sdv-doc-waterloo is the published PyPI package that contains the Waterloo Python package, the Sphinx extension, the MCP server, and the supporting tooling.

Install it from PyPI:

pip install sdv-doc-waterloo

If you want to build the documentation with the Sphinx extension, install the optional extra that provides the external sphinx dependency:

pip install "sdv-doc-waterloo[sphinx]"

Current status

Waterloo is under active development. Recent milestones include:

Current work focuses on the MCP server:

• Bearer-token authentication
• Docker deployment
• Administration tooling

Quick tutorials

waterlint

waterlint is the main command-line tool for Waterloo Docstrings. It validates docstrings, renders Waterloo JSON, generates helper output, and supports the MCP-related workflows in this project. Its JSON diagnostics are machine-readable and therefore useful in CI pipelines and GitHub workflows.

Start with the general help:

waterlint -h

For topic-specific help, use for example:

waterlint help --topic validate
waterlint help --topic render-json
waterlint help --topic render-docker

One important waterlint output path is the MCP server setup: the tool can validate the server configuration and generate a Docker build script when you want to package the server as an image.

Running the MCP server

The MCP server exposes Waterloo documentation data through the Model Context Protocol. It is tightly bound to the Waterloo JSON schema and provides tools that help generate and inspect Waterloo docstrings. It serves the bundled roots, object details, examples, references, and prompt templates so clients can inspect the documentation structure without parsing the JSON documents directly.

After installation, start the server in a terminal with:

wtrl_mcp

This launches the MCP server with the bundled default configuration. The package installs a ready-to-use wtrl_mcp.toml next to the server code inside site-packages/sdv/doc/waterloo/mcp/, so the default startup command works without any repository checkout.

If you want to inspect or customize the configuration, point --config to a copy of that file and adjust the roots, host, port, and allowed origins as needed.

Registering the MCP server in Codex or Claude Code

Once the server is running, register it in your CLI client so it can reach the server without manual setup every time. The exact subcommand syntax depends on the CLI version, but the pattern is the same:

codex

codex mcp add myserver --url http://127.0.0.1:13316/mcp

claude

claude mcp add --transport http myserver http://127.0.0.1:13316/mcp

If you prefer localhost, use that host name instead of 127.0.0.1. If the agent itself runs inside a container or on another host, replace the address with the one that matches your deployment. The server name is only an identifier for the client, so you can choose any name that is convenient for you.

Rendering a Docker setup from the MCP configuration

If you want to ship the MCP server as a container, waterlint can generate a Docker build script from the MCP configuration. For example:

waterlint render-docker --in src/sdv/doc/waterloo/mcp/wtrl_mcp.toml --out /tmp/myserver.docker

The generated script contains the Docker build steps and the runtime command line. It also prints a few practical hints, such as which port mapping to use and which host names should be allowed for the resulting server. After that, you can build the image with the generated script and run it in Docker.

Projects using Waterloo Docstrings

The following projects use Waterloo Docstrings in practice.

Human-readable HTML
3DE4 Python Scripting Interface
Interactive HTML documentation.

LLM-ready JSON
3DE4 Python Scripting Interface
Waterloo JSON documentation with examples.