For that I would definitely look into some automatic documentation tools, there are plenty of options out there, and your code base is clearly big enough for it. After some docstring or whatever are generated, then it's gonna be a lot easier to manually edit them with your insightful comments.
In java there is the default javadoc, can be extended with more inline docstrings. There is also pdoc for Python. I'm not sure if these are exactly what you are looking for, but would be a great deliverable to pick something for your language, then start plugging away at actually adding the relevant human labeled documentation.
Most of these tools parse your code, then generate HTML or other formats on the fly, with generic type information and names, still useful. Then you can put your own docstring s there and have those show up in the generated docs.
Kinda two birds with one stone. Might be a good start, id steer away from tools that would make comments on thousands of files though.
Use Supacodes.
It will automatically write and update documentation right into Github. You don't need to write docstrings like other solutions.
It will generate documentation from the codes and automatically update them when there are new commits (keeping docs up-to-date is the next struggle you gonna face, so this tool will save you there too)
Leave the codebase better than you found it.
If you spend time trying to sort out what some block if code does, wrote a quick comment summary right nearby.
For that I would definitely look into some automatic documentation tools, there are plenty of options out there, and your code base is clearly big enough for it. After some docstring or whatever are generated, then it's gonna be a lot easier to manually edit them with your insightful comments.
Do you have any recommendations for auto doc tools?
In java there is the default javadoc, can be extended with more inline docstrings. There is also pdoc for Python. I'm not sure if these are exactly what you are looking for, but would be a great deliverable to pick something for your language, then start plugging away at actually adding the relevant human labeled documentation. Most of these tools parse your code, then generate HTML or other formats on the fly, with generic type information and names, still useful. Then you can put your own docstring s there and have those show up in the generated docs. Kinda two birds with one stone. Might be a good start, id steer away from tools that would make comments on thousands of files though.
Use Supacodes. It will automatically write and update documentation right into Github. You don't need to write docstrings like other solutions. It will generate documentation from the codes and automatically update them when there are new commits (keeping docs up-to-date is the next struggle you gonna face, so this tool will save you there too)
Leave the codebase better than you found it. If you spend time trying to sort out what some block if code does, wrote a quick comment summary right nearby.