Rewrite RTD configuration to use build.jobs rather than build.commands (GH-149429)

As part of this conversion, we now ensure that we're comparing against the
merge-base of the PR branch and the base branch when checking whether an RTD
build is worthwhile, deepening the history of the base branch by up to 500
commits if necessary.  If the merge-base can't be found or there are merge
conflicts with the head of the base branch, the build is skipped since it would
give a warped perception of the actual changes anyway.

This unfortunately does nothing about RTD preview comments comparing against
the wrong base, other than skipping builds that shouldn't produce any diff at
all thus avoiding the comment.

Co-authored-by: 🇺🇦 Sviatoslav Sydorenko (Святослав Сидоренко) <wk.cvs.github@sydorenko.org.ua>

Author: zware

.readthedocs.yml

@@ -12,23 +12,47 @@ build:
   tools:
     python: "3"
 
-  commands:
-    # https://docs.readthedocs.io/en/stable/build-customization.html#cancel-build-based-on-a-condition
-    #
-    # Cancel building pull requests when there aren't changes in the Doc directory.
-    #
-    # If there are no changes (git diff exits with 0) we force the command to return with 183.
-    # This is a special exit code on Read the Docs that will cancel the build immediately.
-    - |
-      if [ "$READTHEDOCS_VERSION_TYPE" = "external" ] && [ "$(git diff --quiet origin/main -- Doc/ .readthedocs.yml; echo $?)" -eq 0 ];
-      then
-        echo "No changes to Doc/ - exiting the build.";
-        exit 183;
-      fi
-
-    - asdf plugin add uv
-    - asdf install uv latest
-    - asdf global uv latest
-    - make -C Doc venv html
-    - mkdir _readthedocs
-    - mv Doc/build/html _readthedocs/html
+  jobs:
+    post_checkout:
+      # https://docs.readthedocs.com/platform/stable/guides/build/skip-build.html#skip-builds-based-on-conditions
+      #
+      # Cancel building pull requests when there aren't changes in the Doc
+      # directory or RTD configuration, or if we can't cleanly merge the base
+      # branch.
+      - |
+        set -eEux;
+        if [ "$READTHEDOCS_VERSION_TYPE" = "external" ];
+        then
+          base_branch=main;
+          git fetch --depth=50 origin $base_branch:origin-$base_branch;
+          for attempt in $(seq 10);
+          do
+            if ! git merge-base HEAD origin-$base_branch;
+            then
+              git fetch --deepen=50 origin $base_branch;
+            else
+              break;
+            fi;
+          done;
+          if ! git -c "user.name=rtd" -c "user.email=no-reply@readthedocs.org" merge --no-stat --no-edit origin-$base_branch;
+          then
+            echo "Unsuccessful merge with '$base_branch' branch, skipping the build";
+            exit 183;
+          fi;
+          if git diff --exit-code --stat origin-$base_branch -- Doc/ .readthedocs.yml;
+          then
+            echo "No changes to Doc/ - skipping the build.";
+            exit 183;
+          fi;
+        fi;
+    create_environment:
+      - echo "Skipping default environment creation"
+    install:
+      - asdf plugin add uv
+      - asdf install uv latest
+      - asdf global uv latest
+    build:
+      html:
+        - make -C Doc venv html
+        - mkdir -p "$READTHEDOCS_OUTPUT"
+        - mv Doc/build/html "$READTHEDOCS_OUTPUT/"