But a -latest version is a version before the release of that version. That’s what the compatibility entries have been based on for years.
The way you handled that with <2026.7.999 seems unintuitive, but why didn’t you specify <2026.8.0-latest?
If I need a specific commit that was added within the 2026.8 development, I can be sure everyone using the 2026.8 release has it, but I cannot be sure everyone on 2026.8-latest has it. Maybe their last update happened before the specific commit was added. So if 2026.8 would include 2026.8-latest by default, stuff might break. I feel like it is better that the admin has to wait a few weeks before being able to use/update a theme than the risk of stuff being broken because the required commit was missing.