We have a monorepo with several languages and services, including Lambda deployments. Makefiles handle the builds, and a separate registry describes the tools we have. AI tools help with development, so keeping the structure easy to understand matters too.
Would you stick with Make or move to something like Pants or Bazel? I'd like to avoid a pile of custom scripts and duplicated information.
Pants is worth a look for a multi-language repository. It can infer many dependencies, which may mean less build configuration to maintain than writing everything out yourself. Check its support for your particular languages and deployment steps before committing, though.
Bazel is another option if you want a more explicit, queryable build graph. The tradeoff is that its configuration and troubleshooting can get complicated. I'd compare both on one representative service rather than migrate the whole repo up front.
Make isn't automatically the problem here. If the builds are simple and understandable, there's no need to replace it just because it's old. The more useful question is where the registry and Makefiles repeat the same information, and whether one can consume data from the other.
Bazel can be attractive when build speed, caching and cross-language builds become major concerns. It also has a substantial complexity cost. Budget time for learning and debugging the build setup, not just for translating the existing commands.
AI assistance might help explain configuration, but I wouldn't count on it to make a complicated build system maintenance-free.
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n.408~rivetcase:
The registry also connects the tools to the work they're meant to support, so it needs to do more than describe build dependencies.
Vesra-6m:
That sounds like a separate concern from the build graph. You could still look for ways to link the two without assuming the build system has to replace the registry.