checkmake is an experimental tool for linting and checking Makefiles. It may not do what you want it to.

% checkmake Makefile
% checkmake Makefile foo.mk bar.mk baz.mk
% checkmake --help
checkmake.
Usage:
checkmake [--debug|--config=<configPath>] <makefile>...
checkmake -h | --help
checkmake --version
Options:
-h --help               Show this screen.
--version               Show version.
--debug                 Enable debug mode
--config=<configPath>   Configuration file to read
--list-rules            List registered rules
% checkmake fixtures/missing_phony.make
      RULE                 DESCRIPTION             LINE NUMBER
  minphony        Missing required phony target    0
                  "all"
  minphony        Missing required phony target    0
                  "test"
  phonydeclared   Target "all" should be           18
                  declared PHONY.

Build the image, or pull it:

docker build --build-arg BUILDER_NAME='Your Name' --build-arg BUILDER_EMAIL=your.name@example.com . -t checker

Then run it with your Makefile attached, below is an example of it assuming the Makefile is in your current working directory:

docker run -v "$PWD"/Makefile:/Makefile checker

This repo includes a pre-commit hook, which you may choose to use in your own repos. Simply add a .pre-commit-config.yaml to your repo's top-level directory

repos:
-   repo: https://github.com/mrtazz/checkmake.git
    # Or another commit hash or version
    rev: 0.2.2
    hooks:
    # Use this hook to let pre-commit build checkmake in its sandbox
    -   id: checkmake
    # OR Use this hook to use a pre-installed checkmark executable
    # -   id: checkmake-system

There are two hooks available:

• checkmake (Recommended)

  pre-commit will set up a Go environment from scratch to compile and run checkmake. See the pre-commit golang plugin docs for more information.

• checkmake-system

  pre-commit will look for checkmake on your PATH. This hook requires you to install checkmake separately, e.g. with your package manager or a prebuilt binary release. Only recommended if it's permissible to require all repository users install checkmake manually.

Then, run pre-commit as usual as a part of git commit or explicitly, for example:

pre-commit run --all-files

You may also choose to run this as a GitHub Actions workflow. To do this, add a .github/workflows/pre-commit.yml workflow to your repo:

name: pre-commit
on:
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - master
      - main
    paths:
      - '.pre-commit-config.yaml'
      - '.pre-commit-hooks.yaml'
      - 'Makefile'
      - 'makefile'
      - 'GNUmakefile'
      - '**.mk'
      - '**.make'
  push:
    paths:
      - '.pre-commit-config.yaml'
      - '.pre-commit-hooks.yaml'
      - 'Makefile'
      - 'makefile'
      - 'GNUmakefile'
      - '**.mk'
      - '**.make'
jobs:
  pre-commit:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - uses: actions/setup-python@v3
    - name: Set up Go 1.17
      uses: actions/setup-go@v2
      with:
        go-version: 1.17
      id: go
    - uses: pre-commit/action@v2.0.3

The pandoc document converter utility is required to run checkmake. You can find out if you have it via which pandoc. Install pandoc if the command was not found.

With go 1.16 or higher:

go install github.com/mrtazz/checkmake/cmd/checkmake@latest
checkmake Makefile

Or alternatively, run it directly:

go run github.com/mrtazz/checkmake/cmd/checkmake@latest Makefile

There are packages for linux up on packagecloud.io or build it yourself with the steps below.

To build checkmake you will need to have golang installed. Once you have Go installed, you can simply clone the repo and build the binary and man page yourself with the following commands.

git clone https://github.com/mrtazz/checkmake
cd checkmake
make

checkmake is natively embedded within MegaLinter

To install it, run npx mega-linter-runner --install (requires Node.js)

This is totally inspired by an idea by Dan Buch.