Not to derail this but I've had my eye on Task as a cross-platform alternative to make, but I've never really had a good excuse to use it. I've never seen duty before. It seems interesting, but I'm just mulling over the tradeoffs of tasks defined via code vs configuration.

EDIT: Whoops! I just saw in this issue that you already did consider Task as an option.

@pkalita-lbl - Task or just are probably a better choice for someone who does not know/like Python or for developers who want one tool for all their projects (also Python-free ones). The preference for duty here is only driven by the desire to be compatible with the installation process and to cause least challenges for newcomers.