Stop creating a conf.py/mkdocs.yaml file automatically for users and doing magic

[agjohnson]

We should stop adding a conf.py file for projects that don't have one. We also used to do magic around README handling, we should remove it:

https://github.com/rtfd/readthedocs.org/blob/535f31540fea36a321d148cfee302b34e90adfc9/readthedocs/doc_builder/base.py#L97-L116

[stsewd]

We could create a redirect for all projects? Also, for mkdocs projects, this is already done in the mkdocs side #1615 (comment)

For sphinx there isn't a configuration or an extension (I just did a simple google search). I guess we could write this in the rtd-extension, or just deal with this creating an index file. Why? Because people can even create docs without a README file, and hit the 404 issue.

[ericholscher]

Updated this issue to be about removing the magic around README handling.

[saadmk11]

If I understood correctly we need to remove this part of the code:
https://github.com/rtfd/readthedocs.org/blob/2872832d75ebd8098184e714b9101a455504e1eb/readthedocs/doc_builder/base.py#L106-L111

we will not support README to index creation anymore ?

and for sphinx builder we should remove this part of the code to not automatically create the config file:
https://github.com/rtfd/readthedocs.org/blob/2872832d75ebd8098184e714b9101a455504e1eb/readthedocs/doc_builder/backends/sphinx.py#L175-L177

which will generate a NOT_FOUND Error.
Can you Please confirm? if that's what needs to be done here?

[davidfischer]

should remove this part of the code to not automatically create the config file

I will let others chime in as well, but I am in favor 👍 of removing this.

In general, I believe that Read the Docs should not make broken projects build that are unable to be built outside of Read the Docs. This will lead to more predictable builds.

[astrojuanlu]

It is my understanding that this is not a "Good First Issue"?

[stsewd]

yeah, this is going to be handled when we have the new builders in place.

[humitos]

There is a bunch of history here and lot of issues linked to this issue plus others that talk about probably the same thing. So, I'm doing a small summary of what we are doing here:

• find all the projects where we are creating a Sphinx/MkDocs configuration file (using our logs from Stop creating a conf.py automatically and doing magic around README handling #5609 (comment))
  • Community:
    • Sphinx: 1.6k
    • MkDocs: 143
  • Commercial:
    • Sphinx: 187
    • MkDocs: 20
• write a changelog blogpost about this deprecation and removal with an exact date
• contact them to communicate we are deprecating this feature and they should upgrade their projects before that date
• update Stop creating a conf.py automatically and doing magic around README handling #5609 to remove the auto-create configuration files

[humitos]

I sent the email to these users today 📧 🚀 . We set August 28th for the feature removal.