The LaTeX Package “contract-lab”

The contract-lab package is currently just an internal experiment. The reason for this experiment is that, starting in 2026, LaTeX works very differently when the \DocumentMetadata command (placed before \documentclass) is set. An increasing number of parts of the LaTeX core for class and package authors is then replaced by the still-under-development latex-lab. The current version may already differ significantly from the current developer version latex-lab-dev. As long as the whole thing on the LaTeX core side is not at least somewhat stable, it seems to make little sense to make the experiment itself available on CTAN.

Whether this will ultimately result in a package with functionality similar to contract, something completely different, or even nothing at all, is also impossible to say at this point. Currently the project is hosted privately at Codeberg. Currently, only privileged users involved in the development have access permission.