My watch-make tool tries to do this "properly"; it uses GNU make's --print-data-base to figure out which files to watch for a change. You can run "watch-make t

My watch-make tool tries to do this "properly"; it uses GNU make's --print-data-base to figure out which files to watch for a change. You can run "watch-make test4" and it'll only run "make test4" when a file which is in the dependency chain for test4 changes, rather than any file in the directory tree. It tweaks the PATH for child processes so recursive make invocations should work. I've been lazy and not put yet made an npm package (it's implemented in node.js) or tested cross-platform. Guess I've no reason to be bored tomorrow. https://github.com/andrewffff/watch-make https://github.com/andrewffff/watch-make