Makefile Automation AI Skill Guide

Overview

Make is a dependency-aware task runner. A Makefile declares targets, prerequisites, and recipes so agents and humans share stable entrypoints (make test, make build, make fmt). Good Makefiles are self-documenting, use .PHONY for non-file targets, fail on errors (set -e semantics via flags), and avoid hiding destructive operations behind innocent names.

make <target>
     |
     v
dependency graph -> recipes (shell lines)
     |
     +--> tools: go test, npm, docker, terraform, ...

When to use