While npm scripts are built-in and work well for a variety of situations, there are times when another task runner might make more sense.

My goal is not to suggest you always use Makefiles instead of npm scripts — but rather show possible advantages and provide an introduction. Doesn’t hurt to have one more tool in the toolbox, right?

Advantages

• Makefiles can easily include documentation, or even self-document
• Makefiles support inheritance — this means you can easily share a common set of commands across projects in your team — we even distribute our commands in an npm module!
• Make can help consolidate any shell scripts you’re…