1. A non-transitory, tangible, computer-readable storage medium containing a program of instructions that cause a computer system running the program of instructions to seek to identify at least one contraction metric that satisfies contraction conditions for a design of a dynamical system by performing a process that includes: formulating a search for a candidate contraction metric that is suspected of satisfying the contraction conditions for the design of the dynamical system from a set of simulation traces that describe the behavior of the dynamical system for a specific set of operating conditions; and performing the search for the candidate contraction metric.