phase4 - DO NOT USE, THIS CONTENT IS UNDER DEVELOPMENT

This content is being actively developed and should not be relied upon until published at fedramp.gov.

Local development

Zensical requires Python 3.11 or newer. The GitHub Pages build uses Python 3.13, so Python 3.13 is recommended for local development.

Create and activate a virtual environment from the repository root:

python3.13 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

Install the exact dependency versions used by the Pages build:

python -m pip install --require-hashes -r requirements.txt

Start a local development server with live reload:

zensical serve

The site is normally available at http://127.0.0.1:8000/. Edit Markdown files under content/ and configuration in zensical.toml.

To create a production-like build in html/, run:

zensical build --clean

Adding plugins or dependencies

Add the package and an exact version to requirements.in. For example:

some-zensical-plugin==1.2.3

Regenerate the hashed lock file after installing uv:

python -m pip install uv
uv pip compile requirements.in \
  --python-version 3.13 \
  --python-platform x86_64-manylinux_2_17 \
  --generate-hashes \
  --output-file requirements.txt

Configure the plugin in zensical.toml according to its documentation. Commit both requirements.in and the regenerated requirements.txt; the workflow installs only the locked, hash-verified dependencies.