sphinx-needs

Complete documentation: http://sphinx-needs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Attention: sphinxcontrib-needs got renamed to sphinx-needs. This affects also the URLs for documentation and repository:

Introduction

Sphinx-Needs allows the definition, linking and filtering of class-like need-objects, which are by default:

requirements
specifications
implementations
test cases.

This list can be easily customized via configuration (for instance to support bugs or user stories).

A default requirement need looks like:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/useblocks/sphinxcontrib-needs/master/docs/_images/need_1.png

Layout and style of needs can be highly customized, so that a need can also look like:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/useblocks/sphinxcontrib-needs/master/docs/_images/need_2.png

Take a look into our Examples for more pictures and ideas how to use Sphinx-Needs.

For filtering and analyzing needs, Sphinx-Needs provides different, powerful possibilities:

needtable	needflow	needpie

Installation

Using pip

pip install sphinx-needs

If you wish to also use the plotting features of sphinx-needs (see needbar and needpie), you need to also install matplotlib, which is available via the plotting extra:

pip install sphinx-needs[plotting]

Using sources

git clone https://github.com/useblocks/sphinx-needs
cd sphinx-needs
pip install .

Activation

For final activation, please add sphinx_needs to the project’s extension list of your conf.py file.

extensions = ["sphinx_needs",]

Release files for sphinx-needs 8.3.1

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for sphinx-needs 8.3.1
File	Size	Uploaded
sphinx_needs-8.3.1.tar.gz	27.7 MB	Aug 11, 2026	Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for sphinx-needs 8.3.1
File	Interpreter	ABI	Platform	Reset
sphinx_needs-8.3.1-py3-none-any.whl 2.7 MB Aug 11, 2026	Python 3	none	any	Details

Total release size: 30.4 MB

Release files / sphinx_needs-8.3.1.tar.gz

Download URL	sphinx_needs-8.3.1.tar.gz
Size	27.7 MB
Tags	Source
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`ecc9807c06dd3698ecf78d3a6c0867a3bbaed56204f8cbc21fdd3e1282c2d2bb`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`539e1264611eedd3e4149a520af9ec07bc146d6af6749f3000ab4ad583fd6cf9`
Upload date	Aug 11, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No
Uploaded via	`python-requests/2.34.2`

Release files / sphinx_needs-8.3.1-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL	sphinx_needs-8.3.1-py3-none-any.whl
Size	2.7 MB
Tags	Python 3
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`cca706698cbb0c2fac5c8bf21fc30cd825473f97123783713cf5c9a9d01216c2`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`3ce4004adde6c1e4a40e750174ad8fee646b3065ce68c5a5e61a808c097e6f5f`
Upload date	Aug 11, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No
Uploaded via	`python-requests/2.34.2`