With all due respect the Arduino CLI is superior to Makefiles and similar tools. it's a single binary (no python or other stuff to install) that uses clang and

With all due respect the Arduino CLI is superior to Makefiles and similar tools. it's a single binary (no python or other stuff to install) that uses clang and other tools to automatically deal with dependencies and the process of converting an ino file to a c++ file that can be compiled. it interfaces with the library manager and core manager , downloads all the necessary files etc.. it saves you a ton of time and pain.