There are many build systems out there, but make has the benefits that 1) it's
installed everywhere, and 2) it provides a good balance of functionality for
small-to-medium projects. Here are common Makefile targets that I use so that
I can context switch between my projects without thinking about the build
system.
| Target | Effect | Common Features |
|---|---|---|
setup |
Prepare the local repository for development. | Install dependencies, create files/folders, run immediately after git checkout. Usually not a dependency of build/dev (for performance). |
build |
Build the entire project. | Optimized code, build artifacts (e.g. zip files). Commonly depends on clean. |
dev |
Build the project in development mode. | Local server, rebuild on source file change, unminified code. |
test |
Run the main project tests. | Minimal side effects. |
lint |
Run the source code through a formatting/style linter. | Do not modify code. |
format |
Run the source code through a formatting/style linter. | Automatically fix code when possible. |
clean |
Clean build artifacts so that the next build happens "from scratch". | Remove builds, caches, dependency directories, etc. May undo some or all of make setup depending on the nature of the project. Usually does not remove ./node_modules in JS/TS projects (can be expense to re-download on a slow connection) or ./target in Rust projects (can be kept without causing correctness issues). |
reset |
Reset as much of the project to a clean checkout as possible. | Remove all project-scoped dependencies (e.g. node_modules), tooling, credentials, etc. |
deploy |
Deploy or upload a website project. | Depends on build. |
publish |
Publish a library on the relevant package manager. | Depends on build and test. |
install |
Install the project locally. | Depends on build. |