There are a few more components. In particular, how the build system decides what needs to be done, and how tasks are ordered, are significant. For an excellen

There are a few more components. In particular, how the build system decides what needs to be done, and how tasks are ordered, are significant. For an excellent synthesis of what Makes a build system, I can't recommend the 2018 paper "Build Systems A La Carte" enough: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2018/03/build-systems.pdf https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2018/0... By Andrey Mokhov, Neil Mitchell (now working at Meta on the Buck2 build system) and Simon Peyton Jones (one of the founders of Haskell)