Display all Makefiles commands
Makefiles can be hard to navigate, especially as they grow. Adding a help command makes it easy to see all available targets and their purposes.
The magic help target
Add this awk snippet to your Makefile:
.DEFAULT_GOAL := help
.PHONY: help
help: ##@helper Display all commands and descriptions
@awk 'BEGIN {FS = ":.*##@"; printf "\nUsage:\n make <target>\n"} \
/^[.a-zA-Z_-]+:.*?##@/ { \
split($$2, parts, " "); \
section = parts[1]; \
description = substr($$2, length(section) + 2); \
sections[section] = sections[section] sprintf(" \033[36m%-15s\033[0m %s\n", $$1, description); \
} \
END { \
for (section in sections) { \
printf "\n\033[1m%s\033[0m\n", section; \
printf "%s", sections[section]; \
} \
}' $(MAKEFILE_LIST)
How it works
- Use
##@to group related targets - And place the description of each command after that group
Example Makefile
help: ##@helper Display all commands and their descriptions
@awk 'BEGIN {FS = ":.*##@"; printf "\nUsage:\n make <target>\n"} \
/^[.a-zA-Z_-]+:.*?##@/ { \
split($$2, parts, " "); \
section = parts[1]; \
description = substr($$2, length(section) + 2); \
sections[section] = sections[section] sprintf(" \033[36m%-15s\033[0m %s\n", $$1, description); \
} \
END { \
for (section in sections) { \
printf "\n\033[1m%s\033[0m\n", section; \
printf "%s", sections[section]; \
} \
}' $(MAKEFILE_LIST)
# You can split this in a separated file: validate.Makefile
install: ##@validate Install dependencies
@pnpm install
typecheck: ##@validate Check static types
@pnpm tsc --noEmit
lint: ##@validate Lint the codebase
@pnpm run lint
test: ##@validate Run tests
@pnpm run test
# You can split this in a separated file: deploy.Makefile
build: ##@deploy Build for production
@pnpm run build
deploy: ##@deploy Deploy to production
@pnpm run deploy
.PHONY: help install typecheck lint test build deploy
.DEFAULT_GOAL := help
Running make or make help shows:
❯ make
Usage:
make <target>
deploy
build Build for production
deploy Deploy to production
helper
help Display all commands and their descriptions
validate
install Install dependencies
typecheck Check static types
lint Lint the codebase
test Run tests