Zensical is a static site generator for project documentation, written in Rust and Python by the creators of Material for MkDocs. It follows the same philosophy: batteries included, sensible defaults, and a site that is ready without a page of configuration. A new project needs one required setting — the site name — and an existing MkDocs or Material project can be moved over gradually rather than rewritten in one go.

Getting a site running

• zensical new . scaffolds a project with a docs/ directory, a zensical.toml configuration file and a ready-made GitHub Actions workflow for publishing.
• Sources are Markdown files, and the whole site is configured in zensical.toml; site_name is the only required value, and site_url unlocks instant navigation, instant previews and custom error pages.
• Settings and extensions carry over from the MkDocs ecosystem, so themes, Markdown extensions and most existing configuration translate to an existing project instead of a restart.
• Distributed as a Python package (Python 3.11 or newer) and installed with pip install zensical into a virtual environment, or with uv add --dev zensical.

Publishing

• The output is plain static HTML; the generated workflow builds the site and deploys it to GitHub Pages on every push.
• An official Docker image covers previews and builds inside a container (it is not intended for serving the site).
• The Rust core keeps builds fast on documentation sets that have grown past a few hundred pages.

Writing

• Zensical Studio, a separate editor integration for VS Code and similar editors, shows the Markdown source and the rendered page side by side while you write, with links, anchors and snippets resolved across the workspace; it is offered in free, Pro and Team plans.
• The documentation site at zensical.org is built with Zensical itself, with the project’s own guides covering installation, authoring, customization and Migration.

Alternatives

• ProperDocs — a Python documentation generator with a YAML configuration and the familiar mkdocs and readthedocs themes.
• Docusaurus — a React-based documentation site generator with versioned docs and a blog.