Return to sub-5m Sphinx runs

[exalate-issue-sync]

REPURPOSE - remove Sphinx and also potentially look at root cause at problem

The run duration of the Run Sphinx step of the docs-build job in circleci has ballooned from just under 5 minutes to over 50m.

The last sub-5m run was as of commit 208176e / PR-1888 merged 10 Feb 2026.

As of commit 3fed792 / PR-1887, also merged 10 Feb 2026, the job takes 50+ minutes.

That our deploys took 15-17 minutes was already not ideal; taking an hour is untenable.

We want to identify the cause of the lengthy runs and address it, returning to sub-5m Sphinx runs.

QA Notes

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DEV Notes

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Design

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See full ticket and images here: FECFILE-2968

[exalate-issue-sync]

Dan Fowlkes commented: The warnings and errors about indentation and start-string/end-string are consistent between the two.

The difference is that the latter is full of:

{noformat}error connecting in 'pool-1': connection failed: connection to server at "0.0.0.0", port 5432 failed: Connection refused
Is the server running on that host and accepting TCP/IP connections?{noformat}

[exalate-issue-sync]

akhorsand commented: [~accountid:712020:3a738b19-6415-43b4-81c1-e92f1f7586f3] is this a spike ticket, or is there a definition of done we can add?

[exalate-issue-sync]

Dan Fowlkes commented: [~accountid:61b0b42cd5986c006a9e1c94] I don’t think it’s a spike, I think it’s something we need to address ASAP. I updated the title and description; is that clearer?

[exalate-issue-sync]

akhorsand commented: [~accountid:712020:3a738b19-6415-43b4-81c1-e92f1f7586f3] Thank you so much! Moving to refinement queue.