An alternative I quite like is “just”.
> just has a ton of useful features, and many improvements over make:
> • just is a command runner, not a build system, so it avoids much of make's complexity and idiosyncrasies. No need for .PHONY recipes!
It makes it easier to come back to a project after a few weeks, because you don't have to remember the N commands you were using to iterate/test, you only have to remember the 'just' invocation.
For some reason, it feels like a more natural fit for this than 'make'