Replace the hand-maintained Docsify site (parallel docs/en + docs/ru trees
that had already drifted) with a MkDocs Material build where English is the
single source of truth and Russian is generated at build time.
Engine & structure
- mkdocs.yml: Material theme, site_url for the /XC_VM/ Pages subpath, and a
two-tab information architecture — User Guide (administration, API/Swagger,
UI translations, diagnostics, info/FAQ) vs Developer Guide (architecture,
workflow, security, integrations, build). Files are NOT moved — the split is
nav-only, so URLs and cross-links stay stable.
- mkdocs-static-i18n (folder mode): English at root, Russian under /ru/, with a
language switcher. `mkdocs build --strict` validates every link/anchor.
Translation pipeline (tools/docs/translate.py)
- Engine-agnostic via DOCS_TRANSLATE_PROVIDER: translators (free, no API key —
default), anthropic, deepl, or noop. Per-file sha256 cache so only changed
English files are re-translated. Markdown-safe: code, URLs, HTML tags and
glossary terms (XC_VM, FFmpeg, HLS, ...) are masked and never translated.
A file whose translation fails falls back to English so the build never breaks.
- docs/ru is generated and gitignored — never committed. It is produced locally
(`make docs-serve` / `docs-build`) and in CI.
CI & tooling
- pages.yml: build-then-upload (setup-python -> install -> restore .docs-cache
with restore-keys -> translate -> mkdocs build --strict -> deploy), replacing
the verbatim docs/ upload.
- Makefile: docs-venv / docs-translate / docs-build / docs-serve.
- docs/requirements.txt; .gitignore for docs/ru, site/, .docs-cache.
Migration details
- Removed Docsify control files (index.html, _navbar.md, _sidebar.md, .nojekyll)
and de-Docsify-ed body links in 6 English files (en-us/ aliases -> relative,
swagger _media paths, stripped ':ignore' link syntax).
- Preserved the two Russian-only planning docs (no English source) by moving
them into docs/adr/ as *.ru.md (repo-internal, excluded from the site).
The heartbeat is written by the watchdog daemon (which now waits out DB
outages), not by cron:servers; the babysitter section documents the
crontab/cron-service/hung-lock sub-checks, and the cheat-sheet covers
the 'all nodes drop at the same moment' scenario. cli-tools blurbs
updated to match (en/ru).