diff --git a/python/ray/_private/services.py b/python/ray/_private/services.py
index fa0545a2e..f15ca5aa7 100644
--- a/python/ray/_private/services.py
+++ b/python/ray/_private/services.py
@@ -122,6 +122,54 @@ def new_port():
 
 
 def find_redis_address(address=None):
+    """
+    Currently, this extracts the deprecated --redis-address from the command
+    that launched the raylet running on this node, if any. Anyone looking to
+    edit this function should be warned that these commands look like, for
+    example:
+    /usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/ray/core/src/ray/raylet/raylet
+    --redis_address=123.456.78.910 --node_ip_address=123.456.78.910
+    --raylet_socket_name=... --store_socket_name=... --object_manager_port=0
+    --min_worker_port=10000 --max_worker_port=10999 --node_manager_port=58578
+    --redis_port=6379 --num_initial_workers=8 --maximum_startup_concurrency=8
+    --static_resource_list=node:123.456.78.910,1.0,object_store_memory,66
+    --config_list=plasma_store_as_thread,True
+    --python_worker_command=/usr/bin/python
+        /usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/ray/workers/default_worker.py
+        --redis-address=123.456.78.910:6379
+        --node-ip-address=123.456.78.910 --node-manager-port=58578
+        --object-store-name=... --raylet-name=...
+        --config-list=plasma_store_as_thread,True --temp-dir=/tmp/ray
+        --metrics-agent-port=41856 --redis-password=[MASKED]
+        --java_worker_command= --cpp_worker_command= --redis_password=[MASKED]
+        --temp_dir=/tmp/ray --session_dir=... --metrics-agent-port=41856
+        --metrics_export_port=64229
+        --agent_command=/usr/bin/python
+        -u /usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/ray/new_dashboard/agent.py
+            --redis-address=123.456.78.910:6379 --metrics-export-port=64229
+            --dashboard-agent-port=41856 --node-manager-port=58578
+            --object-store-name=... --raylet-name=... --temp-dir=/tmp/ray
+            --log-dir=/tmp/ray/session_2020-11-08_14-29-07_199128_278000/logs
+            --redis-password=[MASKED] --object_store_memory=5037192806
+            --plasma_directory=/tmp
+    Longer arguments are elided with ... but all arguments from this instance
+    are included, to provide a sense of what is in these.
+    Indeed, we had to pull --redis-address to the front of each call to make
+    this readable.
+    As you can see, this is very long and complex, which is why we can't simply
+    extract all the the arguments using regular expressions and present a dict
+    as if we never lost track of these arguments, for example.
+    Picking out --redis-address below looks like it might grab the wrong thing,
+    but double-checking that we're finding the correct process by checking that
+    the contents look like we expect would probably be prone to choking in
+    unexpected ways.
+    Notice that --redis-address appears twice. This is not a copy-paste error;
+    this is the reason why the for loop below attempts to pick out every
+    appearance of --redis-address.
+
+    The --redis-address here is what is now called the --address, but it
+    appears in the default_worker.py and agent.py calls as --redis-address.
+    """
     pids = psutil.pids()
     redis_addresses = set()
     for pid in pids: