I find autodoc hard to reason about currently; the core implementation is a 3,200 line file with unhelpful uses of mixin classes, etc. This is a tracking issue for improvements.

A

• Refactor sphinx.ext.autodoc internals #13744
• Merge DocstringStripSignatureMixin into DocstringSignatureMixin #13752
• Merge DecoratorDocumenter.format_args() into FunctionDocumenter #13753
• Combine resolve_name() methods #13754
• Merge DocstringSignatureMixin into Documenter #13755
• Improve autodoc sentinels #13756
• Inline DataDocumenter mixin classes #13757
• Inline AttributeDocumenter mixin classes #13758
• Move options processing to _directive_options #13759
• Extract autodoc importing to module-level functions #13773
• Make _Sentinel immutable #13782
• Introduce a new type for documenter options #13783
• Hold properties for the documented objects in new types #13796
• Combine name resolution and importing #13797
• Add object_name to _ItemProperties #13798
• Store object __module__ for get_real_modname() #13799
• Prefer using attributes on self.props in Documenter classes #13801
• Warn on invalid module __all__ during initial load #13802
• Prefer using attributes on documenter.props (followup) #13803
• Refactor sphinx.ext.autodoc internals #13744
• Prefer props._obj to documenter.object #13804
• Extract autodoc object member gathering #13820
• Extract directive header construction from runtime introspection #13931
• Consolidate add_content() handling #13936
• Extract most docstring-related logic #13941
• Move property type annotation logic to importer #13948
• Consolidate format_args() #13949
• Improve signature handling in autodoc #13955
• Improve various autodoc tests #13958
• Merge remaining special cases into Documenter #13959
• Treat Documenter.indent as a constant #13960
• Use a new _best_object_type_for_member() function #13961
• Remove member_order attributes #13962
• Remove unused items in _documenters #13963
• Delete FakeDirective in autosummary #13967
• Extract _gather_members() #13968
• Use _AutodocObjType more consistently #13970
• Introduce _AutodocAttrGetter type #13971
• Extract the _docstring_source_name() function #13972
• Use ModuleSpec.origin #13973
• Simplify Autosummary.get_items() #13974
• Avoid using Documenter.name #13975
• Extract _prepare_docstrings() #13977
• Use _load_object_by_name() directly #13978
• Move member merging logic from options to _member_finder #13982
• Remove DocumenterBridge #13984
• Extract _generate_directives() from Documenter._generate() #13985
• Use more type aliases for autodoc event listeners #14008
• Consolidate option spec processing into _directive_options.py #14009
• Accept a sequence of strings in extract_summary() #14014
• Calculate and use the docstring_lines attribute #14015
• Inline _get_doc() into _get_docstring_lines() #14016
• Use parent_modname and canonical_module_name #14017
• Remove env from autodoc interfaces #14018
• Define and use TEST_ROOTS_DIR #14020
• Group the type alias cross-referencing test with Python domain tests #14021
• Split out test_ext_autodoc_typehints #14027
• Integrate autodoc event callbacks into importer #14031
• Split autodoc signature utilities to a new module #14032
• Split autodoc name parsing utilities to a new module #14033
• Combine type comment utilities into _type_comments.py #14034
• Split autodoc loader functions to a new module #14035
• Reorganise and rename sphinx.ext.autodoc._importer #14036
• Add a shared utilities module for autodoc #14037
• Reduce autodoc test duration by up to four times #14039
• Introduce _auto_document_object() #14084
• Introduce sphinx.ext.autodoc._dynamic subpackage #14087
• Make sphinx.ext.autodoc._directive private #14090
• Restore the legacy implementation of autodoc for compatibility #14091