Welp, turns out this was crucial to correctly rendered doctrees.

Only impacts use of get_doctree(), aka invocations.release tasks.

Fixes #72

releases/util.py

@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ from docutils.nodes import bullet_list
 from sphinx.application import Sphinx # not exposed at top level
 # NOTE: importing these from environment for backwards compat with Sphinx 1.3
 from sphinx.environment import (
-    SphinxStandaloneReader, SphinxFileInput, SphinxDummyWriter,
+    SphinxStandaloneReader, SphinxFileInput, SphinxDummyWriter, sphinx_domains,
 )
 
 from . import construct_releases, setup
@@ -132,9 +132,14 @@ def get_doctree(path):
     reader_kwargs = {
         'app': app,
         'parsers': env.config.source_parsers,
+        #'parsers': app.registry.get_source_parsers()
     }
     if sphinx.version_info[:2] < (1, 4):
         del reader_kwargs['app']
+    # This monkeypatches (!!!) docutils to 'inject' all registered Sphinx
+    # domains' roles & so forth. Without this, rendering the doctree lacks
+    # almost all Sphinx magic, including things like :ref: and :doc:!
+    with sphinx_domains(env):
         reader = SphinxStandaloneReader(**reader_kwargs)
         pub = Publisher(reader=reader,
                         writer=SphinxDummyWriter(),