WWhatJustShipped

Repo tutorials · Rust

Zensical

github.com/zensical/zensical

A Rust static site generator from the Material for MkDocs team. We installed it, built 203 pages with it, migrated an MkDocs project, and broke it five ways.

Start here, in order· 4 parts, about 32 min total
  1. 1

    1. Installing Zensical, and the Failure That Hits Most Macs

    pip install zensical succeeds on a stock Mac and gives you nothing. A 1.0 kB wheel, version 0.0.2, no binary. Here is why, and the working install.

    7 min
  2. 2

    2. What Zensical Does at 203 Pages

    We built 220,400 words with it. Going from 3 pages to 203 made the wall clock go down, and the search index it ships to your readers is 1.4 MB.

    7 min
  3. 3

    3. Migrating an MkDocs Project, and What Vanishes

    It read our mkdocs.yml with no conversion step and built the site correctly. Then it dropped four plugins without printing a single word about any of them.

    7 min
  4. 4

    4. Putting Zensical in CI, and What Strict Mode Cannot See

    Strict mode does work, on the subcommand CI runs. But it escalates warnings, and the failures that matter most never produce one.

    7 min