Articles
Written down, so it can be checked
What we have learned putting documents through a pipeline, written out rather than summarised. One is published here; the rest are linked to where they actually live.
Published here
The packaging guidelines: directory layout, documented sources as .dtx, bundling for CTAN and TeX Live, and the version-control practices that keep a package releasable. Written for Xerdi's Documentation Project, and applicable to any LaTeX package aiming for TeX Live.
It is a page and a PDF built from one source, so the version you read and the version you file cannot say different things.
Published in TUGboat
Xerdi's Documentation Project: intertwined documents
TUGboat 46:2 (2025), pp. 277-284
The architecture this company is built on, written up for an audience that would notice if it did not hold: how structure, data and context are kept apart so a document can be generated and still be read.
Integrating Git information into LaTeX documents: gitinfo-lua
TUGboat 45:3 (2024), pp. 354-356
A document that can say which commit it was built from. The package is on CTAN and is what puts the version in the footnote of a manual.
Specifying and populating documents in YAML with lua-placeholders
TUGboat 45:1 (2024), pp. 65-76
The recipe-and-payload split: a schema for what a document expects and a separate file for what it is given, so a template and its data can be checked against each other instead of merged by hand.
Published elsewhere
maclotsen.com
Erik's essays on document engineering, free software and digital autonomy. Published under his own name rather than Xerdi's, and read at the source rather than reprinted here.
Packages on CTAN
ctan.org/author/nijenhuis
Seven packages carrying Erik's name, among them lua-placeholders, gitinfo-lua, regulatory and comment2tex. Published work with documented sources, installed by TeX Live and maintained in the open.