MiKTeX
The MiKTeX Project Page is the place to go, if
you are new to MiKTeX.
In short: MiKTeX is a modern C/C++ implementation of TeX & Friends for Windows, macOS and Linux. The MiKTeX source code is documented here:
https://docs.miktex.org/hacking/index.html
MiKTeX is also a scalable TeX distribution ("Just enough TeX"):
- you have the option to start with MiKTeX executables and some configuration files
- in the course of authoring your documents, only necessary LaTeX packages, fonts etc.
will be downloaded and installed
Building
MiKTeX can be built on Windows and Unix-like (including macOS)
systems. Please consult these HOWTOs for platform-specific build
instructions:
In addition, you can try one of the Dockerized build environments to build MiKTeX:
Deep diving
If you want to understand the MiKTeX source code, have a look at HACKING.md.