🍞 mbake

A Makefile formatter and linter. It only took 50 years!

Features

• Smart formatting: Tabs for recipes, consistent spacing, line continuation cleanup
• Intelligent .PHONY detection: Automatically identifies and manages phony targets
• Syntax validation: Ensures Makefiles are valid before and after formatting
• Configurable rules: Customize behavior via a project .bake.toml or {XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/bake.toml
• CI/CD ready: Check mode for automated formatting validation
• VSCode extension: Full editor integration available

Installation

# Install from PyPI
pip install mbake

# Or install VSCode extension
# Search for "mbake Makefile Formatter" in VSCode Extensions

Quick Start

# Format a Makefile
mbake format Makefile

# Check if formatting is needed (CI/CD mode)
mbake format --check Makefile

# Validate Makefile syntax
mbake validate Makefile

# Initialize configuration
mbake init

Usage

Basic Commands

# Format files
mbake format Makefile                   # Format single file
mbake format --check Makefile           # Check formatting (CI/CD)
mbake format --diff Makefile            # Show changes without modifying

# Validate syntax
mbake validate Makefile                 # Check Makefile syntax with GNU make

# Configuration
mbake init                              # Create config file
mbake config                            # Show current settings
mbake config --path                     # Show which config file is used
mbake update                            # Update to latest version

Key Options

• --check: Check formatting without making changes (perfect for CI/CD)
• --diff: Show what changes would be made
• --backup: Create backup before formatting
• --validate: Validate syntax after formatting
• --timeout: Timeout in seconds for the --validate syntax check (default: syntax_check_timeout from the config file, or 10)
• --config: Use custom configuration file

Configuration

mbake looks for a configuration file in this order:

1. --config PATH, if given
2. .bake.toml in the current directory, or else in the nearest parent directory that has one
3. ~/.bake.toml if it exists, otherwise $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/bake.toml (default ~/.config/bake.toml), which mbake init creates

A .bake.toml from step 2 that cannot be loaded is skipped with a warning on stderr, and the search continues in the parent directories. A file from step 3 that cannot be loaded is also skipped with a warning, and the built-in defaults are used; mbake config reports it as an error instead. An invalid --config file is always an error. Run mbake config to see which file is used and its settings.

Create a config file with mbake init. Key settings:

[formatter]
# Spacing and formatting
space_around_assignment = true          # CC=gcc to CC = gcc
space_after_colon = true                # myapp.o:myapp.c to myapp.o: myapp.c
normalize_line_continuations = true     # Clean up backslash continuations
remove_trailing_whitespace = true       # Remove trailing spaces
fix_missing_recipe_tabs = true          # Convert spaces to tabs in recipes

# Variable alignment
align_variable_assignments = false      # Align consecutive assignments
align_across_comments = false           # Continue alignment across comments

# .PHONY management
auto_insert_phony_declarations = false  # Auto-detect and insert .PHONY
group_phony_declarations = false        # Group multiple .PHONY lines
phony_at_top = false                    # Place .PHONY at file top

Smart .PHONY Detection

mbake intelligently detects phony targets by analyzing recipe commands:

# These are automatically detected as phony
test:
 npm test

clean:
 rm -f *.o

deploy:
 ssh user@server 'systemctl restart app'

# This creates a file, so it's NOT phony
myapp.o: myapp.c
 gcc -c myapp.c -o myapp.o

Enable auto-insertion in your config:

[formatter]
auto_insert_phony_declarations = true

Examples

Before and After

# Before: Inconsistent spacing and indentation
CC:=gcc
CFLAGS= -Wall -g
SOURCES=main.c \
  utils.c \
    helper.c

all: $(TARGET)
    $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o $@ $^

clean:
    rm -f *.o

# After: Clean, consistent formatting
CC := gcc
CFLAGS = -Wall -g
SOURCES = main.c \
  utils.c \
  helper.c

all: $(TARGET)
	$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o $@ $^

clean:
	rm -f *.o

Disable Formatting

Use special comments to disable formatting in specific regions:

# bake-format off
CUSTOM_FORMAT= \
      1 \
  45678 \
#bake-format on

The lines between the markers are not reformatted and stay directly after their # bake-format off line, even when formatting adds or removes lines elsewhere. At the end of the file, the usual final-newline handling still applies. Line numbers in error and warning messages count the lines inside disabled regions.

CI/CD Integration

# GitHub Actions example
- name: Check Makefile formatting
  run: |
    pip install mbake
    mbake format --check Makefile

Exit codes: 0 (success), 1 (needs formatting), 2 (error)

Contributing

Contributions welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for details.

# Development setup
git clone https://github.com/ebodshojaei/bake.git
cd mbake
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest  # Run tests

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.