Need a built-in way to specify how to extract help text from docstring

[pepoluan]

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Example Code

import typer

app = typer.Typer()

@app.command()
def run(things: list[str]) -> None:
    """
    Execute some things.

    :param things: List of things to execute
    :return: None
    """
    pass

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app()

Description

Refer to the Example Code

I documented the function in reST-style, so parameters are listed under the description with :param xxx: syntax.

However, if i run the program, for example:

> uv run python try_docstring.py --help
 Usage: try_docstring.py [OPTIONS] {things}...

 Execute some things.

 :param things: List of things to execute
 :return: None

┌─ Arguments ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
  ... and so on ...

I'd appreciate it if we can make app.command() to be able to read only the first paragraph, or maybe add a callback. So for example

@app.command(help=DocstringSyntax.reST)  # DocstringSyntax is an enum
def run(...):
    ...

or

def docstring_cleanup(docstring: str | None) -> str:
    # Typer should invoke this callback function with the str from inspect.getdoc(func)
    if not docstring:
        return ""
    paras = [p.strip() for p in docstring.strip().split("\n\n") if p.strip()]
    return paras[0] if paras else ""

@app.command(help=docstring_cleanup)
def run(...):
    ...

In either case, Typer would extract only the first paragraph, thus invoking help would look like this:

> uv run python try_docstring.py --help
 Usage: try_docstring.py [OPTIONS] {things}...

 Execute some things.
                                                                               
┌─ Arguments ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
  ... and so on ...

Operating System

Linux, Windows, Other

Operating System Details

Currently developing in Windows, but the tool will be running on Linux

Project Version

0.27.2

Python Version

3.14.8

Additional Context

No response

[YuriiMotov]

You can use a "form feed" character (\f) to achieve this:

@app.command()
def run(things: list[str]) -> None:
    """
    Execute some things.
    \f

    :param things: List of things to execute
    :return: None
    """

It seems that it's not documented in Typer's docs, but it works.
Read about it in FastAPI's docs: https://fastapi.tiangolo.com/advanced/path-operation-advanced-configuration/#advanced-description-from-docstring