Require documentation of public API elements

[ncoghlan]

• Enable docstring linting for public API elements
• Linting enforces the use of Google-style docstrings
• Update the names and visibility of various API elements
• Add missing docstrings to public API elements
• Fix some docstring text formatting issues
• Add release notes for these changes and docs process changes

Continues progress on issue #33 (improving the API docs).

[github-actions[bot]]

PR Preview Action v1.4.8 :---: Preview removed because the pull request was closed. 2024-11-11 00:35 UTC