Do we really have to commit ast.json?

[josephjclark]

I'm forever forgetting to commit ast.json into the repo (and I'm not the only one). It's a really annoying hidden dependency we have which blocks releases.

Do we really need to to be checked in?

I know the docs build needs it but it could build the ASTs itself. We've got a very complex docs build now and my instinct is we could remove the commited artefacts from maim.

We could even explore auto-commiting the AST in the public step.

Requires more investigation