Suggestions from James: mitx is old-school, as is autogeneration.

docs/source/conf.py

 # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+"""
+EdX documentation build configuration file
+"""
 #pylint: disable=C0103
 #pylint: disable=W0622
 #pylint: disable=W0212
 #pylint: disable=W0613
-""" EdX documentation build configuration file, created by
- sphinx-quickstart on Fri Nov  2 15:43:00 2012.
-
-  This file is execfile()d with the current directory set to its containing dir.
-
-  Note that not all possible configuration values are present in this
-  autogenerated file.
-
-  All configuration values have a default; values that are commented out
-  serve to show the default."""
 
 import sys
 import os
@@ -22,16 +15,16 @@ import os
 # documentation root, use os.path.abspath to make it absolute, like shown here.
 # sys.path.insert(0, os.path.abspath('.'))
 
-mitx = os.path.abspath('../..')
+root = os.path.abspath('../..')
 
-sys.path.append(mitx)
-sys.path.append(os.path.join(mitx, "common/djangoapps"))
-sys.path.append(os.path.join(mitx, "common/lib"))
-sys.path.append(os.path.join(mitx, "common/lib/sandbox-packages"))
-sys.path.append(os.path.join(mitx, "lms/djangoapps"))
-sys.path.append(os.path.join(mitx, "lms/lib"))
-sys.path.append(os.path.join(mitx, "cms/djangoapps"))
-sys.path.append(os.path.join(mitx, "cms/lib"))
+sys.path.append(root)
+sys.path.append(os.path.join(root, "common/djangoapps"))
+sys.path.append(os.path.join(root, "common/lib"))
+sys.path.append(os.path.join(root, "common/lib/sandbox-packages"))
+sys.path.append(os.path.join(root, "lms/djangoapps"))
+sys.path.append(os.path.join(root, "lms/lib"))
+sys.path.append(os.path.join(root, "cms/djangoapps"))
+sys.path.append(os.path.join(root, "cms/lib"))
 
 #  django configuration  - careful here
 os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'lms.envs.test'