makefile-development

This skill should be used when the user asks to "create a Makefile", "write a Makefile", "add a make target", or mentions Makefile conventions.

Quality

74%

Does it follow best practices?

Run evals on this skill

Adds up to 20 points to the overall score

View guide

Securityby

Passed

No findings from the security scan

Fix and improve this skill with Tessl

tessl review fix ./plugins/toolkit/skills/makefile-development/SKILL.md

Makefile Development

Create Makefiles following consistent conventions.

Template

default: help

.PHONY: help
help: # Show help for each of the Makefile recipes.
	@grep -E '^[a-zA-Z0-9 -]+:.*#'  Makefile | sort | while read -r l; do printf "\033[1;32m$$(echo $$l | cut -f 1 -d':')\033[00m:$$(echo $$l | cut -f 2- -d'#')\n"; done

.PHONY: init
init: # Initialise the development environment.
	./scripts/init.sh

Conventions

Element	Convention
Filename	`Makefile` (capitalised, no extension)
Default target	`default: help` as the first line
`.PHONY`	Declare directly above each target
Help comments	Single `#` on the target line: `target: # Description.`
Target names	Lowercase, hyphen-separated (`test-e2e`, `type-check`)
Complex logic	Delegate to scripts (`./scripts/build.sh`) rather than inline

Help Target

The self-documenting help target parses # comments and prints sorted, colour-coded output:

.PHONY: help
help: # Show help for each of the Makefile recipes.
	@grep -E '^[a-zA-Z0-9 -]+:.*#'  Makefile | sort | while read -r l; do printf "\033[1;32m$$(echo $$l | cut -f 1 -d':')\033[00m:$$(echo $$l | cut -f 2- -d'#')\n"; done

Every target must have a # Description. comment or it won't appear in help output.

Common Targets

Target	Purpose
`help`	Show available targets (always present)
`init` or `setup`	Install dependencies, configure environment
`build`	Compile or bundle artifacts
`dev`	Start local development server
`test`	Run test suite
`lint`	Run linters and formatters

Important

After creating or modifying Makefiles, remind the user:

Use tabs. Makefile recipes require literal tab characters for indentation, not spaces.

Repository: dwmkerr/claude-toolkit
Path: plugins/toolkit/skills/makefile-development/SKILL.md
Commit: 4316684

Last updated: 8 days ago
First committed: 6 months ago

Is this your skill?

If you maintain this skill, you can claim it as your own. Once claimed, you can manage eval scenarios, bundle related skills, attach documentation or rules, and ensure cross-agent compatibility.