diff --git a/.github/workflows/tests.yml b/.github/workflows/tests.yml
index c8381aa897..d9421ddf47 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/tests.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/tests.yml
@@ -45,14 +45,16 @@ jobs:
       matrix:
         os: [ubuntu-latest]
         python-version: ["3.9", "3.10", "3.11", "3.12"]
-        sphinx-version: [""]
+        sphinx-version: ["rls"]
         include:
           # macos test
           - os: macos-latest
             python-version: "3.12"
+            sphinx-version: "rls"
           # windows test
           - os: windows-latest
             python-version: "3.12"
+            sphinx-version: "rls"
           # old Sphinx test
           - os: ubuntu-latest
             python-version: "3.9"
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 8d674125d5..b3e2847846 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ dynamic = ["version"]
 readme = "README.md"
 requires-python = ">=3.9"
 dependencies = [
-  "sphinx>=5.0",
+  "sphinx>=5",
   "beautifulsoup4",
   "docutils!=0.17.0",
   "packaging",
@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ doc = [
   "sphinx-autoapi>=3.0.0",
   # For examples section
   "myst-parser",
-  "ablog>=0.11.0rc2",
+  "ablog>=0.11.8",
   "jupyter_sphinx",
   "pandas",
   "plotly",
diff --git a/tools/github_actions_install.sh b/tools/github_actions_install.sh
index fba8346eae..90e08f1b06 100755
--- a/tools/github_actions_install.sh
+++ b/tools/github_actions_install.sh
@@ -4,14 +4,14 @@
 # ($2) is an extra dependency (currently just nox on one run)
 set -eo pipefail
 export PYTHONUTF8=1
-if [[ "$SPHINX_VERSION" == "" ]]; then
-    SPHINX_INSTALL=""
+if [[ "$SPHINX_VERSION" == "rls" ]]; then
+    SPHINX_INSTALL="sphinx[test]"
 elif [[ "$SPHINX_VERSION" == "dev" ]]; then
     SPHINX_INSTALL="sphinx[test]@https://codeload.github.com/sphinx-doc/sphinx/zip/refs/heads/master"
 elif [[ "$SPHINX_VERSION" == "old" ]]; then
     SPHINX_INSTALL="sphinx[test]==6.1.0"
-else  # not used currently but easy enough
-    SPHINX_INSTALL="sphinx[test]==$SPHINX_VERSION"
+else  # for the "build site" jobs
+    SPHINX_INSTALL="sphinx<7.3"
 fi
 set -x  # print commands
 python -m pip install --upgrade pip wheel setuptools