Publish your site¶

The great thing about hosting project documentation in a git repository is the ability to deploy it automatically when new changes are pushed. Zensical makes this ridiculously simple.

GitHub Pages¶

If you're already hosting your code on GitHub, GitHub Pages is certainly the most convenient way to publish your project documentation. It's free of charge and pretty easy to set up.

with GitHub Actions¶

Using GitHub Actions you can automate the deployment of your project documentation. At the root of your repository, create a new GitHub Actions workflow, e.g. .github/workflows/docs.yml, and copy and paste the following contents:

name: Documentation
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master
      - main
permissions:
  contents: read
  pages: write
  id-token: write
jobs:
  deploy:
    environment:
      name: github-pages
      url: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.page_url }}
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/configure-pages@v5
      - uses: actions/checkout@v5
      - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: 3.x
      - run: pip install zensical
      - run: zensical build --clean # (1)!
      - uses: actions/upload-pages-artifact@v4
        with:
          path: site
      - uses: actions/deploy-pages@v4
        id: deployment

1. At the moment, we do not recommend using caches on CI systems as the caching functionality will undergo revisions as we optimize the performance of Zensical.

When a new commit is pushed to the branch you are using for deployment (e.g. master or main), the static site is automatically built and deployed. Push your changes to see the workflow in action.

Your documentation should shortly appear at <username>.github.io/<repository>.

GitLab Pages¶

If you're hosting your code on GitLab, deploying to GitLab Pages can be done by using the GitLab CI task runner. At the root of your repository, create a task definition named .gitlab-ci.yml and copy and paste the following contents:

pages:
  stage: deploy
  image: python:latest
  script:
    - pip install zensical
    - zensical build --clean # (1)!
  pages:
    publish: site # (2)!
  rules:
    - if: '$CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == $CI_DEFAULT_BRANCH'

1. At the moment, we do not recommend using caches on CI systems as the caching functionality will undergo revisions as we optimize the performance of Zensical.

2. The Gitlab documentation says that the SSG should adapt to Gitlab Pages, which uses the folder public by default but it is possible to configure the default folder as shown here.

When a new commit is pushed to the default branch (e.g. master or main), the static site is automatically built and deployed. Push your changes to see the workflow in action.

Your documentation is will now be published under <username>.gitlab.io/<repository>.

Other¶

We cannot document every hosting provider here. The following community guides describe how to deploy a Zensical site elsewhere. If you find an issue with one of these guides, please contact the author.

• Azure Static Web Apps with GitHub Actions
• Azure Static Web Apps with Azure DevOps