diff --git a/xos/tosca/doctemplates/html/node_type.html b/xos/tosca/doctemplates/html/node_type.html
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2793cf3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/xos/tosca/doctemplates/html/node_type.html
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+<h2>{{ node_type.node_type_name }}</h2>
+<blockquote>
+
+<h3>Description:</h3>
+{% if node_type.description %}
+  <blockquote>
+  {{ node_type.description }}
+  </blockquote>
+{% endif %}
+
+<h3>Capabilities:</h3>
+{% if node_type.capabilities %}
+  <blockquote>
+  <table class="properties">
+  <tr><th>name</th><th>type</th></tr>
+  {% for capname,cap in node_type.capabilities.iteritems() %}
+     <tr><td>{{ capname }}</td><td>{{ cap.type }}</td></tr>
+  {% endfor %}
+  </table>
+  </blockquote>
+{% endif %}
+
+<h3>Properties:</h3>
+{% if node_type.properties %}
+  <blockquote>
+  <table class="properties">
+  <tr><th>name</th><th>required</th><th>type</th><th>default</th></tr>
+  {% for propname,prop in node_type.properties.iteritems() %}
+     <tr><td>{{ propname }}</td>
+         <td>{{ prop.required }}</td>
+         <td>{{ prop.type }}</td>
+         <td>{{ prop.default }}</td>
+     </tr>
+     {% if prop.description %}
+     <tr><td colspan=4 class="helptext" style="apadding-left: 30px;">{{ prop.description }}</td></tr>
+     {% endif %}
+  {% endfor %}
+  </table>
+  </blockquote>
+{% endif %}
+
+</blockquote>
+
+
+
diff --git a/xos/tosca/doctemplates/html/toscadoctemplate.html b/xos/tosca/doctemplates/html/toscadoctemplate.html
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0087c27
--- /dev/null
+++ b/xos/tosca/doctemplates/html/toscadoctemplate.html
@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+<html><head>
+<title>Tosca Documentation</title>
+
+<style>
+.properties {
+  border-collapse: collapse;
+}
+.properties td, .properties th {
+  border: 1px solid black;
+  padding: 3px 7px 2px 7px;
+}
+.properties th {
+  font-size: 1.1em;
+  padding-top: 5px;
+  padding-bottom: 4px;
+  background-color: #A7C942;
+  color: #ffffff;
+}
+.helptext {
+  padding-left: 30px !important;
+  color: rgb(153, 153, 153);
+}
+</style>
+
+</head>
+<body>
+
+This documentation is autogenerated from the XOS Tosca custom_types
+specification (xos/tosca/custom_types/xos.m4).
+
+{% for node_type in node_types %}
+  {% if node_type.node_type_kind == "node" %}
+    {% include 'node_type.html' %}
+  {% endif %}
+{% endfor %}
+
+<h3>XOS Relationships</h3>
+<blockquote>
+<table class="properties">
+<tr><th>name</th><th>target_types</th></tr>
+{% for node_type in node_types %}
+  {% if node_type.node_type_kind == "relationship" %}
+      <tr><td>{{ node_type.node_type_name }}</td><td>{{ node_type.valid_target_types|join(', ') }}</td></tr>
+  {% endif %}
+{% endfor %}
+</table>
+</blockquote>
+
+<h3>XOS Capabilities</h3>
+<blockquote>
+<table class="properties">
+<tr><th>name</th></tr>
+{% for node_type in node_types %}
+  {% if node_type.node_type_kind == "capability" %}
+      <tr><td>{{ node_type.node_type_name }}</td></tr>
+  {% endif %}
+{% endfor %}
+</table>
+</blockquote>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/xos/tosca/makedocs.py b/xos/tosca/makedocs.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f7dc11b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/xos/tosca/makedocs.py
@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+import jinja2
+import os
+import sys
+import yaml
+import pdb
+
+# add the parent directory to sys.path
+import os,sys,inspect
+currentdir = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(inspect.getfile(inspect.currentframe())))
+parentdir = os.path.dirname(currentdir)
+sys.path.append(parentdir)
+
+# a bit of a hack for developing -- run m4 to generate xos.yaml from xos.m4
+os.system("m4 %s/custom_types/xos.m4 > %s/custom_types/xos.yaml" % (currentdir, currentdir))
+
+"""
+{'derived_from': 'tosca.nodes.Root', 'capabilities': {'scalable': {'type': 'tosca.capabilities.Scalable'},
+'service': {'type': 'tosca.capabilities.xos.Service'}}, 'properties': {'icon_url': {'required': False,
+'type': 'string'}, 'public_key': {'required': False, 'type': 'string'}, 'kind': {'default': 'generic',
+'type': 'string'}, 'published': {'default': True, 'type': 'boolean'}, 'view_url': {'required': False, 'type': 'string'}, 'enabled': {'default': True, 'type': 'boolean'}, 'versionNumber': {'required': False, 'type': 'string'}}}
+"""
+
+class ToscaDocumenter(object):
+    def __init__(self, fn="./custom_types/xos.yaml", templatedir="./doctemplates/html", templatename="toscadoctemplate.html", destfn="tosca_reference.html"):
+        self.env = jinja2.Environment(loader=jinja2.FileSystemLoader(templatedir))
+
+        self.custom_types = yaml.load(file(fn).read())
+        self.node_types = self.custom_types.get("node_types")
+
+        self.destfn = destfn
+        self.templatename = templatename
+
+    def run(self):
+        node_types=[]
+        for k in sorted(self.node_types.keys()):
+            nt = self.node_types[k]
+            nt["node_type_name"] = k
+
+            derived_from = nt.get("derived_from","")
+
+            if derived_from.startswith("tosca.nodes"):
+                nt["node_type_kind"] = "node"
+            elif derived_from.startswith("tosca.capabilities"):
+                nt["node_type_kind"] = "capability"
+            elif derived_from.startswith("tosca.relationships"):
+                nt["node_type_kind"] = "relationship"
+
+            node_types.append(nt)
+
+        template = self.env.get_template(self.templatename)
+
+        self.destf = open(self.destfn,"w")
+        self.destf.write(template.render(node_types=node_types))
+
+def main():
+    ToscaDocumenter().run()
+
+if __name__=="__main__":
+    main()