As opposed to what exactly? Any other alternative, e.g. separate shell scripts, "npm run" scripts in package.json, running a Docker image, hell even cmake or other make-like tools - does stuff you don't know about without reading the files either.
I tend to write my Makefiles to create as much of a local dev environment as possible for every project. Using Python virtualenv/Pipenv/Poetry, Ruby vendored dirs, custom Gopath per project (using direnv), etc. Most tools support some sort of isolation/localisation, but it's often just not on by default.
I have seriously considered hiring someone to audit and prune all the random little libraries and tools I've installed over the years for that one-off time I had to process a weird file format or wanted to try something from HN.
Every boot is a fresh install. Any one-off only becomes persisted unless I add it to my recipes.
It does sound like the right idea. This is hypocritical as someone who doesn't use it but I hope more people use it.