Contract generation is one of the most common — and most painful — PDF use cases. Every contract needs precise formatting, correct legal language, and dynamic fields filled with deal-specific data. Get the formatting wrong and the document looks unprofessional. Get the data wrong and you have a legal problem.

Most teams either generate contracts manually in Word or build fragile HTML-to-PDF pipelines. Both approaches break at scale. AgentPDF gives you a better path: you don’t need a designer — build the template yourself in the visual editor, or let your AI agent create it programmatically. The output is deterministic: same data in, same PDF out, guaranteed.

Why Contract PDF Generation Is Uniquely Difficult

Contracts aren’t like other documents. They have specific requirements:

Exact formatting matters — Paragraph numbering, indentation, section headers, and clause structure must be precise. Legal reviewers notice when formatting is inconsistent.
Dynamic party details — Names, addresses, titles, company names — these change on every contract but must appear in multiple places throughout the document.
Conditional sections — Some contracts include non-compete clauses, some don’t. Some have addenda, others are single-page agreements. Your template needs to handle variations.
Multi-page consistency — Headers, footers, page numbers, and signature blocks need to appear in the right places across any document length.
Rendering must be deterministic — If the same contract data produces a slightly different PDF on staging vs production, that’s a legal risk. Layout shifts, page break changes, font substitutions — none of this is acceptable for legal documents.

Two Ways to Create Contract Templates

Option 1: Build It Yourself in the Editor

AgentPDF’s visual editor lets anyone create contract templates — you don’t need to be a designer. Set up your section structure, clause numbering, signature blocks, and branding. The editor uses the same deterministic rendering engine as the API, so the template you build is exactly what the PDF will look like.

Option 2: Let Your AI Agent Design It

This is AgentPDF’s key differentiator. Our layout rendering engine is simple enough for AI agents to work with directly. Your agent can:

Create the contract layout from scratch via the API or MCP server
Set up sections, clause numbering, party details blocks, and signature areas
Define smart variables for all dynamic fields
Save the template and immediately start generating contracts from it

Your legal team provides the language. Your AI agent handles the template design and generation. No designer, no custom code, no Word mail merge.

Generate Contracts via API

Once your template exists (whether you or your agent created it), generating a contract is a single API call:

curl -X POST https://api.agentpdf.ai/v1/generate \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "templateId": "service-agreement-v3",
    "variables": {
      "partyAName": "AgentPDF Inc.",
      "partyAAddress": "548 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94104",
      "partyBName": "Acme Corp",
      "partyBAddress": "123 Business Ave, New York, NY 10001",
      "effectiveDate": "March 1, 2026",
      "terminationDate": "February 28, 2027",
      "contractValue": "$48,000",
      "paymentTerms": "Net 30",
      "scopeOfWork": "PDF generation API integration and ongoing platform access",
      "governingLaw": "State of California"
    }
  }'

The output is a professionally formatted contract PDF, ready to send. Deterministic — the same data always produces the exact same document.

Why Deterministic Rendering Matters for Legal Documents

Legal documents cannot have rendering inconsistencies. If a contract looks different when generated on your staging server versus production, that’s a problem. If page breaks shift and a clause moves to a different page, that changes the reading experience.

Most PDF APIs use headless browsers (Puppeteer, Playwright) which produce subtly different output depending on Chrome version, OS, fonts, and timing. That’s not acceptable for contracts.

AgentPDF’s rendering engine is purpose-built for PDF output — no browser involved:

Same data = same PDF. Always. Regenerating a contract from the same data produces a byte-identical document.
No environment variance. The contract looks the same whether generated on your laptop, in CI, or on a production server.
Template versioning you can trust. The legal team approves a template knowing the output will match what they reviewed.

Common Contract Generation Patterns

Sales contracts — CRM closes a deal, triggers contract generation with deal data, sends for signature. No manual document assembly.

Employment agreements — HR system generates offer letters and employment contracts from templates. New hire data goes in, formatted agreement comes out.

NDAs — One template, two parties, one API call. Generate NDAs in seconds instead of filling out Word templates.

Vendor agreements — Procurement generates standardized vendor contracts with specific terms per vendor.

Lease agreements — Property management platforms generate lease documents for each tenant with property-specific details.

Let AI Agents Handle the Entire Flow

With AgentPDF’s MCP server, AI agents can own the contract workflow end-to-end:

Design the template — Agent creates the contract layout using the simple rendering engine
Pull deal data — Agent queries your CRM or database for the contract details
Generate the PDF — Deterministic output, every time
Send for signature — Push to DocuSign, HelloSign, or any e-signature platform
Store it — Upload the signed version to your document management system

The agent doesn’t just fill in templates — it can design them, generate from them, and manage the entire document lifecycle.

Get Started

You don’t need a designer to produce professional contracts. Build templates in the editor or let your AI agent create them, then generate deterministic PDFs at scale.

Try AgentPDF free →

How to Generate Contracts and Legal Documents With a PDF Template API