Zensical

🎙️ We were on @talkpython! Episode #542 is live – Martin Donath (@squidfunk) joined @mkennedy to talk about the origin story of Zensical, how it differs from MkDocs, and what drove us to build it. If you're curious about the "why", this is a good listen: talkpython.fm/episodes/show/…

Now that I'm editing docs and seeing the change in the browser live, instantly... migrating to @zensical is so worth it ✨

I just finished migrating all the open source docs from MkDocs to @zensical 🚀 @FastAPI was the last one. The iteration (build) speed makes the developer / author experience so much nicer, so much more productive.

Zensical 0.0.42 improves stability and accuracy of link validation, and fixes some bugs related to file watching, abbreviations in the table of contents, and GLightbox. Release notes: github.com/zensical/zensi…

Zensical Monthly 04/2026 AI agents don't stop when your docs have a gap. They guess – confidently, fluently, and wrongly. This month's Zensical Monthly is about what that means for technical writers, and what we're building about it. Web version: mail.zensical.org/monthly/2026/0…

Zensical 0.0.40 is out with macro support. You can now use macros inside Markdown files and even docstrings – a much-requested feature that was never possible with mkdocs-macros. Release notes: github.com/zensical/zensi…

Zensical 0.0.39 is out – a bugfix release smoothing out edges on link validation and the new lightbox integration. github.com/zensical/zensi…

Zensical 0.0.38 is out! 🎉 Link and footnote validation + strict mode are here – now catches broken links, unresolved references, and shadowed definitions at build time. You'll probably catch and fix a few issues when upgrading. We did too! 🫣 github.com/zensical/zensi…

Zensical 0.0.37 adds support for installable themes – you can now package your existing customizations into a theme that can be installed via pip exactly as with MkDocs. Read the release notes: github.com/zensical/zensi…

Zensical 0.0.35 just arrived. What we shipped: - 🌄 Image zoom + galleries with GLightbox – 🏗️ Rich formatting in the table of contents – 🔗 Resolution of relative links in raw HTML Release notes: github.com/zensical/zensi…

Open Source software wins in the age of AI – not despite it, but because of it. Extensibility, transparency, and community ownership matter more than ever. It's at the core of everything we're building with @Zensical. youtube.com/watch?v=G1xqTj…

All issues of Zensical Monthly are now public. Catch up on anything you missed, or share an issue with your team: #archive" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">zensical.org/about/newslett…

ZRX 0.0.17 is out – the foundation of Zensical. This one's a big deal – the module system is here, and with it a ground-up rewrite of the scheduler and stream crates. Three months of work. Phase 2 done. Phase 3 starts now. Release notes: github.com/zensical/zrx/r…

Zensical 0.0.30 adds a new floating table of contents menu on mobile/tablet, and ships support for our fork of "mike" – a tool that enables you to deploy multiple versions of your documentation to GH Pages. Checkout the 0.0.30 release notes: github.com/zensical/zensi…

Just finished the impl of a central module system concept: Specificity. If multiple selectors match a resource, ordering becomes important. This allows for super fine-grained module interdependencies 😎 Released as part of ZRX 0.0.15 github.com/zensical/zrx/r…

In the light of the latest MkDocs developments, we've updated our plugin section to outline how we plan to reach feature parity as quickly as possible, and how MkDocs plugins relate to @Zensical modules. zensical.org/compatibility/…

We've just released Zensical 0.0.25, which includes several improvements for authoring and user experience, as well as accessibility. We're also making good progress on the module system, so shouldn't be long ☺️ github.com/zensical/zensi…

I will be on @TalkPython next week, talking about @zensical ☺️ youtube.com/watch?v=V1BvvI…

@mitsuhiko Not yet. We are working on it. Please understand that right now we're getting hammered with feature requests for the things that are not en par with Material for MkDocs yet. We're prioritizing things as they make sense. Swappable Markdown parsers will follow later this year.

@zensical Is there a way to opt into a different markdown parser for new docs?

I want to like Zensical for docs, but the markdown renderer they have is incompatible with what LLMs generate and what everybody else uses, and then list rendering is all broken all the time :(

@mitsuhiko Once we have CommonMark support, we'll provide automated tools to migrate from Python Markdown and escape the MkDocs trap. We're working as hard and fast as we can, as there's still some ground to cover. To those interested, our newsletter is here: zensical.org/about/newslett…

@mitsuhiko We're currently stuck with Python Markdown for compat reasons, which is not 100% compatible with CommonMark. This is a temporary limitation we need to endure to allow all users of MkDocs to switch to Zensical as soon as possible. Our phased transition: #phased-transition-strategy" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">zensical.org/compatibility/…