package.json scripts are definitely a bit out of place. I think their prevalence stems from popular npm projects using the pattern for easy cross-platform devel

package.json scripts are definitely a bit out of place. I think their prevalence stems from popular npm projects using the pattern for easy cross-platform developer experience. I've seen some shell scripts in opensource node projects, but not much makefile, and I actually had an interviewer once joke that makefiles were old and out of style. But as I have worked with less Windows developers over time, my projects have relied more on shell scripts and makefiles. I think the containerization movement has started to shift software development towards Linux-based tooling as well. As a cross-platform effort this is a bit ironic, but having overlapping developer experience and CI/CD tooling is pretty convenient when you're on a Unix kernel or WSL2. However, much of the npm ecosystem and community are focused on frontend work that often does not involve infrastructure-related tooling. Without the absolute need for any OS-specific tools, and with the many composable crossplatform scripts in vogue already, package.json scripts make sense (until they get out of hand).