Build

Makefiles aren’t just for C projects. They’re a simple, universal way to document and run project tasks. Why Make Every project has tasks: build, test, deploy, clean. Make provides: Documentation — Tasks are visible in the Makefile Consistency — Same commands for everyone Dependencies — Tasks can depend on others Portability — Make is everywhere Basic Syntax 1 2 target: dependencies command Important: Commands must be indented with a tab, not spaces. ...

Make gets overlooked because people think it’s for compiling C code. In reality, it’s a universal task runner with one killer feature: it only runs what needs to run. Basic Structure 1 2 target: dependencies command That’s it. The target is what you’re building, dependencies are what it needs, and commands run to create it. Important: Commands must be indented with a tab, not spaces. Simple Task Runner 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 .PHONY: build test deploy clean build: npm run build test: npm test deploy: build test rsync -avz dist/ server:/var/www/ clean: rm -rf dist/ node_modules/ .PHONY tells Make these aren’t real files—just task names. ...