Sphinx extension to render local toctree in templates (ex. sidebar). see also: https://groups.google.com/d/topic/sphinx-users/dqfCLab4oB0/discussion

_templates-localtoc.html

<h3>toctree</h3>
{{ local_toctree(pagename, maxdepth=-1) }}

conf.py

sys.path.insert(0, os.path.abspath('.'))
extensions = ['local_toctree']
html_sidebars = {'somepage': ['localtoc.html']}

local_toctree.py

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from sphinx import addnodes

"""
``local_toctree``: A callable yielding the global TOC tree that contains
list of all the content below the specified page. ``local_toctree`` need
pagename specifing as like as ``{{ local_toctree(pagename) }}`` and
optional keyword arguments are available:

* maxdepth (defaults to the max depth selected in the toctree directive):
  the maximum depth of the tree; set it to -1 to allow unlimited depth
"""

def init_local_toctree(app):

    def _get_local_toctree(docname, **kwds):
        doctree = app.env.get_doctree(docname)
        if 'maxdepth' not in kwds:
            kwds['maxdepth'] = 0
        toctrees = []
        for toctreenode in doctree.traverse(addnodes.toctree):
            toctree = app.env.resolve_toctree(
                            docname, app.builder, toctreenode, **kwds)
            toctrees.append(toctree)
        if not toctrees:
            return None
        result = toctrees[0]
        for toctree in toctrees[1:]:
            result.extend(toctree.children)
        return app.builder.render_partial(result)['fragment']

    ctx = app.env.config['html_context']
    if 'local_toctree' not in ctx:
        ctx['local_toctree'] = _get_local_toctree


def setup(app):
    app.connect('builder-inited', init_local_toctree)