Makefile

Why Makefiles?

We’re using Makefiles in our projects because we want to have a clear & simple interface for all common actions. This interface is used for:

• Preparing the local development environment

• Running local tasks during the development

• Running the same tasks in CI/CD pipelines

There might be alternative solutions out there, but Makefiles and make do the job just fine and they’re widely accepted. Makefiles can get messy, but all of our Makefiles are and will always be simple.

Important

It is important that tasks in the CI/CD pipelines are executed similar to the tasks executed locally (e.g. for testing), thus the unified interface. Most of the GitLab CI files use exactly these Makefiles.

Common targets

Usually most of our projects include Makefiles which use common targets.

Prepare development environment

Preparing the development environment for most of our Python projects & packages is quite similar and looks like this:

make venv
source .venv/bin/activate
make develop

Clean targets

Target	Usage
clean	Clean all downloaded & built files
clean-cache	Clean cache files, e.g. Python’s *.pyc & __pycache__
clean-test	Clean test (configuration) files
clean-build	Clean built files, e.g. the build/ directory
clean-venv	Clean the Python venv

Install targets

Target	Usage
venv	Create a Python venv
develop	Install the project or package for development (incl. all dev requirements)
develop-python	Install the Python dependencies for the project or package for development
develop-node	Install the Node dependencies for the project or package for development
install	Install the project or package

Hint

You can also install dependent Python packages locally without depending on the PyPi Server. Simply clone the Git repository of the dependent Python package and use one of the following commands while the project’s Python venv is active:

# Install Python package for the use in a project.
make -C {local Git repository} install

# Develop on a Python package while in use in a project (i.e. library development).
make -C {local Git repository} develop

Hint

In case you’re not in our private networks, installing PyPi packages might fail because our PyPi Server is not available publicly. In this case, you can often overwrite the PYPI_INDEX like this:

make develop PYPI_INDEX=https://pypi-public.confirm.ch

Development targets

Target	Usage
isort	Fix the Python imports via isort
server	Run the development server, e.g. Django runserver
migrate	Run the database migrations, e.g. Django migrations

Test targets

Common test targets:

Target	Usage
test	Run all tests for the project or package
test-commits	Validate the commits with the help of git-tools’ Validate Commits
test-unittest	Run the unit tests, e.g. Python unittest
test-packages	Run vulnerability checks on 3rd-party packages, e.g. pip-audit

Python test targets:

Target	Usage
test-isort	Run the isort linter
test-pycodestyle	Run the pycodestyle linter
test-pylint	Run the Pylint linter
test-django	Run the Django tests
test-coverage	Show the coverage report, e.g. Coverage.py

Static files test targets:

Target	Usage
test-eslint	Run the ESLint linter
test-stylelint	Run the stylelint linter

Visual regression test targets:

Target	Usage
test-vrt	Run the visual regression tests
vrt-approve	Approve the visual regression tests
vrt-report	Open the visual regresion test report
vrt-remote	Run the remote server for the visual regression test report

Build targets

Target	Usage
build	Build the project or package
sdist	Build the Python source distribution
wheel	Build the Python wheel binary package

Documentation targets

Target	Usage
docs	Build the Documentation
autdocs	Watch the source and live build the Documentation on changes