Makefile that is a wrapper for package.json & docker-compose files

Question

I've got the following Makefile:

.PHONY: install install-prod clean
MODULE := ./node_modules/.bin
COMPOSE := docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml
install:
 @echo "--- Installing dependencies!"
 npm install
install-prod:
 @echo "--- Installing production dependencies!"
 npm install --only=production
build:
 @echo "--- Babelify-ing code!"
 npm run build
run:
 @echo "--- Building Docker and running app!"
 ${COMPOSE} up --build -d app
test:
 @echo "--- Running tests"
 npm run test
coverall:
 @echo "--- Running tests & reporting to Coverall!"
 npm run coverall
clear:
 @echo "--- Clearing everything!"
 ${COMPOSE} down

It's a simple one, but in essence, it wraps commands in a package.json and a docker-compose.yml for an express app so it makes calls in a CI Pipeline easier to understand and maintain.

I would love some feedback about whether it can be optimized, cleaner, or potentially smaller. Anything really.

Answer 1

It is good that you specify a .PHONY target. For consistency, it is a good practice to add all of the targets to the .PHONY list since none of them refers to a file. For example, like the install target does not create a file named install, the build target does not create a file named build. This means build should be added to the .PHONY list along with install.

Since the Makefile does not use the MODULE variable, you can delete the line:

MODULE := ./node_modules/.bin