Context

MkDocs has been unmaintained since August 2024. Material for MkDocs (v9.7.5) entered maintenance mode — 12 months of critical fixes only, no new features. Zensical is the designated successor, built by the same team (squidfunk), MIT licensed, reads mkdocs.yml natively, and is designed as a drop-in replacement.

Changes

• Replace mkdocs-material==9.7.5 with zensical==0.0.26 in pyproject.toml
• Update CI workflows (pages.yml, pages-preview.yml) to use zensical build
• Remove --strict flag until zensical/backlog#72 ships
• Update all documentation references (CLAUDE.md, README.md, decisions.md, scripts, configs)
• No changes to mkdocs.yml — Zensical reads it natively
• mkdocstrings + griffe-pydantic remain unchanged (separate plugin ecosystem)

Not in scope

• No zensical.toml creation (team recommends against it for existing projects)
• No mkdocs.yml rename or restructure
• No content/markdown changes
• No theme changes (same Material design, built-in)