diff --git a/docs/src/API/index.rst b/docs/src/API/index.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..190c92c415
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/src/API/index.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+.. _api placeholder:
+
+***************
+API Placeholder
+***************
+
+This document is here merely as a placeholder so it's LACK of presence when
+building the docs like this:
+
+.. code-block:: bash
+
+    $ python build.py html skip_api
+
+(which is done in a doc-development/testing environment) does not generate a warning
+because this file is not there.  When the API portion of the documents DOES get
+built, this file is replaced with one programmatically generated by ``build.py``
+making calls on ``api_doc_builder.py`` and ``doxygen_xml.py`` modules.