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Generate a Project Makefile for All Your Common Commands

bagwaa @bagwaa · Mar 26, 2026 · Workflows
generate-a-project-makefile-for-all-your-common-commands

A good Makefile turns docker-compose up -d && php artisan migrate && npm run dev into just make dev. Claude can write one for you from scratch in seconds.

Describe your project and what you want targets for:

Write a Makefile for a Laravel + Vue project that uses Docker Compose. 
I want targets for: starting/stopping the stack, running migrations, 
running tests (PHP and JS), building frontend assets, clearing caches, 
and generating IDE helper files. Add a help target that lists all commands.

Claude will write a proper Makefile with .PHONY declarations, coloured help output, and sensible defaults — not a toy script.

.PHONY: help dev stop test migrate

help: ## Show available commands
	@grep -E '^[a-zA-Z_-]+:.*?## .*$$' $(MAKEFILE_LIST) | \
		awk 'BEGIN {FS = ":.*?## "}; {printf "\033[36m%-20s\033[0m %s\n", $$1, $$2}'

dev: ## Start the development stack
	docker-compose up -d
	php artisan migrate --force

test: ## Run the full test suite
	./vendor/bin/pest
	npm run test

If you have an existing Makefile and want to extend it, paste it in and ask Claude to add new targets without breaking what's already there.

A Makefile is the cheapest onboarding doc you'll ever write — make help tells a new developer everything they need to get started.

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