sphinx-terraform-ch

A Sphinx extension that auto-generates documentation for Terraform modules directly from HCL source files.

Based on the original sphinx-terraform by Charles Bouchard-Légaré.

This fork (sphinx-terraform-ch) rewrites the extension with a new Sphinx domain, block renderer, and module parser.

Features

• tfmodule directive: auto-document one or more Terraform modules from a path
• tf: Sphinx domain: manually document individual Terraform objects with cross-reference support
• tfreport CLI: generate Markdown documentation from the command line
• Supports all standard Terraform block types: resource, variable, locals, data, terraform, module, 0.
• provider, check, import, removed
• Extracts preceding HCL comments (#, //, /* */) as block descriptions
• Cross-module cross-referencing via tf:project namespaces

Installation

pip install sphinx-terraform-ch

Or with uv:

uv add sphinx-terraform-ch

Configuration

Add the extension and MyST parser to your conf.py:

extensions = [
    "sphinx_terraform_ch",
    "myst_parser",
]

Usage

tfmodule Directive

The tfmodule directive scans a directory for .tf files and renders documentation for every block found.

.. tfmodule::
   :path: ../terraform/modules
   :submodules_depth: 1
   :ignore: ["\.terraform", "examples"]
   :hide_nocomment:

Options:

Example — document a single module:

.. tfmodule::
   :path: ./terraform

Example — document all submodules one level deep, skipping test directories:

.. tfmodule::
   :path: ./terraform/modules
   :submodules_depth: 1
   :ignore: ["test", "examples"]

Example — only show documented blocks:

.. tfmodule::
   :path: ./terraform
   :hide_nocomment:

tf: Domain Directives

You can manually document Terraform objects using the tf: domain. These support cross-referencing across your Sphinx project.

Supported directives:

.. tf:resource:: aws_instance web

.. tf:variable:: region

.. tf:locals::

.. tf:data:: aws_ami ubuntu

.. tf:module:: vpc

.. tf:provider:: aws

.. tf:terraform::

.. tf:check:: health

.. tf:import::

.. tf:removed::

Cross-reference roles:

Example cross-reference:

See :tf:var:`region` and :tf:res:`aws_instance.web`.

tf:project Namespace

When documenting multiple modules, use tf:project to scope cross-references so that names do not collide across modules.

.. tf:project:: projectA

.. tf:variable:: region

See :tf:var:`region` (resolves within projectA).

.. tf:project:: None

The tfmodule directive sets this automatically for each module it renders.

tfreport CLI

tfreport generates Markdown documentation for a Terraform module from the command line.

usage: tfreport [-h] [--level LEVEL] [-v] path

Generate a Terraform documentation report for a module path.

positional arguments:
  path           Path to the Terraform module directory.

options:
  --level LEVEL  Heading level for the generated report (default: 1).
  -v, --verbose  Verbosity controls (repeat for more output: -v, -vv, -vvv).

Example:

tfreport ./terraform/modules/vpc
tfreport ./terraform/modules/vpc --level 2 -v

Output is Markdown printed to stdout, suitable for piping or redirecting into a file.

HCL Comment Support

Comments placed immediately before a block (no blank lines between) are extracted and used as the block description. All HCL comment styles are supported:

# This is a variable for the AWS region.
variable "region" {
  type    = string
  default = "us-east-1"
}

// Multi-word resource description.
resource "aws_instance" "web" {
  ami           = "ami-12345"
  instance_type = "t3.micro"
}

/*
 * This locals block computes derived values.
 */
locals {
  name_prefix = "myapp-${var.env}"
}

License

BSD-2-Clause-Patent. See LICENSE file at root of the directory.

Original work copyright (c) 2022 Charles Bouchard-Légaré.