Utilizing comment formats to auto generate docs (e.g., docstrings, javadocs, groovydocs, etc.)

[kmhernan]

New feature

Using a DSL/markup in comments in nextflow files to automatically generate docs (HTML, etc.). Allowing to define/describe the inputs/outputs and other information useful for folks who contribute to your workflow and beyond.

Usage scenario

• Adding comments in your nextflow files following spec/markup requirements
• Run tool that parses comments and generates documentation files from them (e.g., HTML)

Suggest implementation

• Python has docstrings and Java has JavaDocs
• Can you utilizing any existing JVM utils?
• Processes, Workflows, and functions may have slightly different markup features
• Comments in config files are certainly helpful, but may be a different beast

[bentsherman]

Java comments are supported in Nextflow, so you might be able to use JavaDocs to parse the comments into HTML docs