You can use labels for contact scope.
This doesn't answer your question, but in case it helps for others out there: it's possible to use WhatsApp with no access whatsoever to your contacts and I used it that way for years. Connecting with people is slightly jankier but it still works.
Yeah, that's what I do right now.
> Connecting with people is slightly jankier but it still works.
Without GrapheneOS's contact scopes, how exactly do you do that? Doesn't the other person have to message you first?