I've been a happy make user for 20+ years across many, many projects and many languages. I've never had issues with the .PHONY task that seems to bother people so much.

It's simple, readable, editable, composable and already installed everywhere.

It does what it says on the tin and not much else.

FWIW, I also wrap up whatever fad (or nightmare) build system people use in other projects when I need to deal with them.