To build RapidSMS documentation, you need the sphinx python documentation engine. On Debian-based systems, it should be available in the python-sphinx package. See also http://sphinx.pocoo.org/ The docs directory is a partial copy of the Django documentation structure to be used as a model to construct RapidSMS Documentation. You can build it with the following command: sphinx-build docs $DOCSPUBLIC The source directory contains the real RapidSMS documentation. You can build it with the following command: sphinx-build source $DOCSPUBLIC $DOCSPUBLIC should be an existing directory where the built HTML files will be stored.