docs on how to omit extra components?

[freddrake]

I'd like to build without including some of the additional packages included with this (cyrus-sasl, libxml2, libxslt). I can editing the buildout-build*.cfg files accordingly, or override specific settings from (IIUC) buildout-build.cfg.

But I'd love to know what the "right" way to do that is.

[r-bit-rry]

You can just remove the components you want from the buildout-build.cfg 'parts' setting ( usually in the beginning of the file).
Make sure you edit the right buildout-buid.cfg (platform dependent but most inherit from build-build.cfg and they do not overwrite the 'parts' setting.
Last consideration to make is that some packages are mandatory or dependencies, most likely libiconv, zlib,xz, ncurses,readline,openssl, openssh, gettext,bzip2, sqlite3, libffi, gdbm, libuuid.
you can try and remove other parts