A guide to GNU Make, a tool that runs named build and automation tasks from a Makefile. A Makefile describes targets, their prerequisites, and the commands needed to produce them.

Use it to create or maintain Makefiles, define build and test targets, manage variables, run tasks in parallel, and write reusable build rules.

It helps keep build, test, cleanup, and other project commands repeatable. It also explains details that commonly cause errors, such as variable expansion and the required tab before recipe commands.

makefile — Skill for Claude Code and Codex by itechmeat/llm-code

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent

npx skills add itechmeat/llm-code --skill makefile

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/itechmeat/llm-code

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/itechmeat/llm-code/makefile/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/itechmeat/llm-code/makefile)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/itechmeat/llm-code/makefile"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/itechmeat/llm-code/makefile/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/itechmeat/llm-code/makefile"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/itechmeat/llm-code/makefile.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 47 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.

When invoked 1,791 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.

Security scan C 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.

Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.

Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.00047	$0.01791
Opus 5.5	$0.00019	$0.00716
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00009	$0.00358
Haiku 4.5	$0.00005	$0.00179

Measured 1mo ago against content hash 2231bbf9b4d9, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade C, and why

makefile scanned grade C with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 1mo ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Recursive force deletehighDestructive command

rm -rf with a variable or a broad path is one typo away from removing the wrong tree.

rm -rf build/

skills/makefile/SKILL.md · 324 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 324 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Makefile Skill

Guidance for creating and maintaining GNU Make build automation.

Topic	Reference
Rules, prerequisites, targets	syntax.md
Variable types and assignment	variables.md
Built-in functions	functions.md
Special and phony targets	targets.md
Recipe execution, parallel	recipes.md
Implicit and pattern rules	implicit.md
Common practical patterns	patterns.md

Core Concepts

Rule Structure

target: prerequisites
        recipe

Critical: Recipe lines MUST start with TAB character.

File vs Phony Targets

# File target - creates/updates a file
build/app.o: src/app.c
        $(CC) -c $< -o $@

# Phony target - action, not a file
.PHONY: clean test install

clean:
        rm -rf build/

Variable Assignment

Operator	Name	When Expanded
`:=`	Simple	Once, at definition
`?=`	Conditional	If not already set
`=`	Recursive	Each use (late binding)
`+=`	Append	Adds to existing value

CC := gcc              # Immediate
CFLAGS ?= -O2          # Default, overridable
DEBUG = $(VERBOSE)     # Late binding
CFLAGS += -Wall        # Append

Automatic Variables

Variable	Meaning
`$@`	Target
`$<`	First prerequisite
`$^`	All prerequisites (unique)
`$?`	Prerequisites newer than target
`$*`	Stem in pattern rules

Read the full file on GitHub · 324 lines

Files

What ships with it

7 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

1mo ago First seen · 324 lines · 47 tokens per session scan C 2231bbf9b4d9

Subscribe to this mod's changes

makefile is a skill published in the GitHub repository itechmeat/llm-code (24 stars, last pushed 24d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 47 tokens to every session and 1,791 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it C with 1 finding (recursive force delete). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

DevOps and cloud

local-ai-agents

Build local-first AI agents that run entirely on a developer workstation with Microsoft Foundry Local and Qwen function-calling models. Covers Small Language Models (SLMs), the OpenAI-compatible local endpoint, sandboxed local tools, local RAG with Chroma, local MCP servers, hybrid cloud/local routing, and the…

microsoft/ai-agents-for-beginners · 200 tokens

next-cache-components-adoption

Turn on Cache Components in a Next.js app and resolve the blocking routes it surfaces. Use when the user wants to enable, adopt, or migrate to Cache Components, flip the cacheComponents flag, work through a flood of blocking-prerender / instant validation errors, run the cache-components-instant-false codemod, or…

vercel/next.js · 95 tokens

chronicle

Analyze Copilot session history for standup reports, usage tips, session search, and session reindexing. Use when the user asks for a standup, daily summary, usage tips, workflow recommendations, wants to search or find past sessions by keyword/file/PR, wants to reindex their session store, or asks about deleting…

microsoft/vscode · 72 tokens

systematic-debugging

Use when encountering any bug, test failure, or unexpected behavior, before proposing fixes.

obra/superpowers · 21 tokens

chat-pet-sprite-creation

Use when creating or changing VS Code chat pet sprite art, sprite sheets, state animations, eye treatments, Stable/Insiders variants, or pet transitions under src/vs/workbench/contrib/chat/browser/widget/media/chatPet.

microsoft/vscode · 53 tokens

component-fixtures

Use when creating or updating component fixtures for screenshot testing or their shared infrastructure, or when designing UI components to be fixture-friendly. Covers fixture file structure, theming, service setup, CSS scoping, async rendering, validation, and common pitfalls.