You could do something as follows assuming all source files are in src/, your entry point is src/a.js and your output is build/scripts.js. I use browserify for

You could do something as follows assuming all source files are in src/, your entry point is src/a.js and your output is build/scripts.js. I use browserify for my compilation but this would work similarly with webpack. JS_FILES = $(shell find ./src -name "*.js") JS_ENTRY = ./src/a.js JS_OUT = ./build/scripts.js $(JS_OUT): $(JS_FILES) browserify $(JS_ENTRY) > $(JS_OUT) Now anytime any js files within the src/ directory are modified, make will rebuild scripts.js