https://github.com/ysoftwareab/yplatform https://github.com/ysoftwareab/yplatform that this a notch higher (disclaimer: author here) As others have mentioned o

https://github.com/ysoftwareab/yplatform https://github.com/ysoftwareab/yplatform that this a notch higher (disclaimer: author here) As others have mentioned on this thread, the problem is not just "use Makefiles instead of package.json scripts", but quickly ending up with duplicate Makefile content and then supporting more than just one language. It's inevitable. PS for those that don’t know, npm’s “scripts” functionality as we know it today was not “designed”, but it was simply a byproduct. First introduced as an internal functionality for lifecycle support https://github.com/npm/npm/commit/c8e17cef720875c1f7cea1b49b7bc9f1325ccff5 https://github.com/npm/npm/commit/c8e17cef720875c1f7cea1b49b... on 1 Mar 2010 and later extend to run arbitrary targets https://github.com/npm/npm/commit/9b8c0cf87a9d4ef560e17e060f4ddc03b2ff1a1c https://github.com/npm/npm/commit/9b8c0cf87a9d4ef560e17e060f... on 13 Dec 2010 This is the entire design backstory https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/298 https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/298 . Needless to say that GNU Make’s equivalent (or any other build system) is not to be found in npm’s scripts.