diff --git a/.ci/environment-ci.yml b/.ci/environment-ci.yml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..4a3d72ae6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.ci/environment-ci.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+
+# This environment is smaller than the dev environment.
+#
+# Until conda supports creating env from pyproject.toml
+# (https://github.com/conda/conda/pull/12666)
+# we need to maintain environment-ci.yml file that is inline with deps in
+# pyproject.toml
+#
+name: jupytext-ci
+channels:
+  - defaults
+  - conda-forge
+dependencies:
+  - jupyterlab
+  - nbformat>=5.1.2
+  - pandoc==2.16.2
diff --git a/.github/workflows/step_tests-conda.yml b/.github/workflows/step_tests-conda.yml
index c35d37cc4..090812386 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/step_tests-conda.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/step_tests-conda.yml
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ jobs:
     strategy:
       matrix:
         os: [ 'ubuntu-latest', 'macos-latest', 'windows-latest' ]
-        python-version: [ 3.9 ]
+        python-version: [ 3.11 ]
     runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
 
     steps:
@@ -31,10 +31,10 @@ jobs:
         with:
           auto-update-conda: true
           auto-activate-base: false
-          activate-environment: jupytext-dev
+          activate-environment: jupytext-ci
           python-version: ${{ matrix.python-version }}
           channels: defaults,conda-forge
-          environment-file: environment.yml
+          environment-file: .ci/environment-ci.yml
           use-only-tar-bz2: true
 
       - name: Install from source
diff --git a/environment.yml b/environment.yml
index 918a18cd1..3e4df5174 100644
--- a/environment.yml
+++ b/environment.yml
@@ -6,12 +6,6 @@ dependencies:
   - python>=3.8
   - jupyterlab>=4.0.0
   - nbformat>=5.1.2
-  - pyyaml
-  - toml
-  - markdown-it-py>=1.0.0,<3.0.0
-  - mdit-py-plugins
-  - nbconvert
-  - ipykernel
-  - pandoc==2.16.2
   - pre-commit
   - nodejs>=20
+  - pandoc==2.16.2