diff --git a/.github/workflows/ci-workflows.yaml b/.github/workflows/ci-workflows.yaml
index 33d24adcb..153b9d8a7 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/ci-workflows.yaml
+++ b/.github/workflows/ci-workflows.yaml
@@ -33,6 +33,15 @@ jobs:
                 aspect-api-token: ${{ secrets.ASPECT_API_TOKEN }}
             - name: Gazelle
               run: aspect gazelle --task-key=gazelle
+    docs:
+        runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+        steps:
+            - uses: actions/checkout@v6
+            - uses: aspect-build/setup-aspect@c22a8f64fb38f82f59ce809cd7eb9f8ae096da44 # v2026.23.2
+              with:
+                aspect-api-token: ${{ secrets.ASPECT_API_TOKEN }}
+            - name: Build API docs
+              run: bash .github/workflows/release_docs.sh "$RUNNER_TEMP/rules_py-docs.tar.gz"
     test:
         name: test (${{ matrix.workspace.path }}, ${{ matrix.bazel.id }})
         runs-on: ${{ matrix.workspace.runner }}
diff --git a/.github/workflows/release_docs.sh b/.github/workflows/release_docs.sh
index d0198b32e..7137bc21b 100755
--- a/.github/workflows/release_docs.sh
+++ b/.github/workflows/release_docs.sh
@@ -1,12 +1,16 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
-# Add generated API docs to the release
-# see https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel-central-registry/blob/main/docs/stardoc.md
+# Build the generated API docs archive attached to each release, see
+# https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel-central-registry/blob/main/docs/stardoc.md
 set -o errexit -o nounset -o pipefail
 
 docs="$(mktemp -d)"
 targets="$(mktemp)"
 out=$1
-bazel --output_base="$docs" query --output=label --output_file="$targets" 'kind("starlark_doc_extract rule", //...)'
+bazel --output_base="$docs" query --output=label --output_file="$targets" 'kind("starlark_doc_extract rule", //py/... + //uv/...)'
+if [ ! -s "$targets" ]; then
+    echo "ERROR: no starlark_doc_extract targets found; the release docs archive would be empty" >&2
+    exit 1
+fi
 bazel --output_base="$docs" build --target_pattern_file="$targets"
 tar --create --auto-compress \
     --directory "$(bazel --output_base="$docs" info bazel-bin)" \
diff --git a/.github/workflows/release_prep.sh b/.github/workflows/release_prep.sh
index 961e179df..8d1939fce 100755
--- a/.github/workflows/release_prep.sh
+++ b/.github/workflows/release_prep.sh
@@ -17,12 +17,7 @@ gzip < $ARCHIVE_TMP > $ARCHIVE
 SHA=$(shasum -a 256 $ARCHIVE | awk '{print $1}')
 
 # Add generated API docs to the release, see https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel-central-registry/issues/5593
-# Note, we use xargs here because the repo is on Bazel 7.4 which doesn't have the --output_file flag to bazel query
-docs="$(mktemp -d)"
-bazel --output_base="$docs" query --output=label 'kind("starlark_doc_extract rule", //py/...)' | xargs bazel --output_base="$docs" build
-tar --create --auto-compress \
-    --directory "$(bazel --output_base="$docs" info bazel-bin)" \
-    --file "$GITHUB_WORKSPACE/${ARCHIVE%.tar.gz}.docs.tar.gz" .
+"$(dirname "$0")/release_docs.sh" "$GITHUB_WORKSPACE/${ARCHIVE%.tar.gz}.docs.tar.gz"
 
 cat << EOF
 Add to your \`MODULE.bazel\` file: