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+date = "2025-02-13"
+title = "Easy help command for Makefiles"
+slug = "help-makefile"
+tags = ["QOL"]
+categories = ["Tools"]
+[params]
+  metadescription = 'Adding a help command to your Makefile'
+  metakeywords = 'makefile, help command'
+++
+
+I love Makefiles, they are my prefered way to manage builds. Not just for C or C++, I also use it for Golang for example. To me, it is the best way to manage build commands in a single place.
+
+As I love CLI tools in general, and working with them, the `--help` flag is often a great help, but Make does not offer this out of the box, and navigating complex Makefiles can be challenging.
+
+I can't remember where or when, but a few years ago, I found a snippet somewhere of a Makefile command that adds a coloured text output of all Makefile commands. Using it is as simple as making the following your first Makefile command:
+
+```Makefile
+.PHONY: help
+help: ## Shows all commands
+	@echo 'All Makefile commands:'
+	@grep -h -E '^[a-zA-Z_-]+:.*?## .*$$' $(MAKEFILE_LIST) | awk 'BEGIN {FS = ":.*?## "}; {printf "\033[36m%-30s\033[0m %s\n", $$1, $$2}'
+```
+
+After adding this, you can simply add comments after your other Makefile commands with two `#` characters, like this:
+
+```Makefile
+.PHONY: dev
+dev: CFLAGS = $(CFLAGS_DEV) ## Development build for /src and /example
+dev: clean $(LIB) $(EXAMPLE)
+```
+
+This will now be automatically generate help output when running `make help`, or when you have defined this as your first Make command, with simply `make`
+
+![make help output](/img/0005-1.jpg)