Your contract templates should live in your repo, not in a WYSIWYG editor

Every time someone needed signatures inside a product they were building, the same process occurred. The signature part took an afternoon, while the contract part took weeks. This was due to the contract text residing in another WYSIWYG editor, protected by a login and lacking version history that any team member could review. The source for this story illustrates the problematic nature of legal documents being stored in an inaccessible location.

The author ultimately created a system that maintains templates as Markdown files, resulting in a significant improvement. These templates include a title, description, category, and project description. The Markdown format is straightforward, requiring no additional syntax beyond what is already familiar. The key advantages of this approach involve version control, diffing, reviewing, and testing.

With Markdown templates in a repository, changes to the contract become visible through pull requests, allowing team members to easily understand modifications. The contract also becomes subject to the same approval process as code, providing a robust audit trail. By incorporating tests, linting, and variable checks, the entire contract creation process becomes more efficient and reliable.

The system operates through four API calls, which enable template creation, contract generation, sending, and tracking of signatory actions. Developers interact with the system using simple HTTP requests that include an API key for authentication. The entire process can be automated using continuous integration (CI) jobs, ensuring that templates are consistently updated and deployed alongside code changes.

While the author encourages this approach, they acknowledge that many companies have not yet adopted it due to limited usage and potential costs associated with the service.