diff --git a/.github/workflows/docs-publish.yaml b/.github/workflows/docs-publish.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8a398e4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/docs-publish.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+name: docs-publish
+
+on:
+  push:
+    branches:
+    - main
+  pull_request:
+    branches:
+    - main
+
+jobs:
+  docs-publish:
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    steps:
+    - name: checkout repo
+      uses: actions/checkout@main
+      with:
+        fetch-tags: true 
+    - name: fetch all tags explicitly
+      run: git fetch --depth=1 --tags
+    - name: publish docs
+      run: make docs-publish
+      env:
+        GIT_AUTHOR_NAME: "github-actions[bot]"
+        GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL: "41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com"
+        GIT_COMMITTER_NAME: "github-actions[bot]"
+        GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL: "41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com"
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index ef007f9..1ead8f1 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -31,8 +31,8 @@ docs: docs-build
 docs-build: venv
 	$(MAKE_VENV) -C docs html
 
-docs-clean:
-	make -C docs clean
+docs-clean: venv
+	$(MAKE_VENV) -C docs clean
 
 # Publish docs: Push to a specific branch at the same origin.
 # We have configured GitHub Pages to serve this branch,
@@ -76,5 +76,6 @@ docs-publish: docs-clean docs-build
 clean: docs-clean
 
 .PHONY: mrproper
-mrproper: clean clean-venv
+mrproper: clean-venv
 	-$(RMDIR) "$(BUILDDIR)"
+	-$(RMDIR) "$(PAGESDIR)"