Makefile Linter

Lint Makefiles for common issues — tabs, .PHONY, unused vars, portability, and best practices.

Security Scan

The skill is internally consistent: it ships a pure‑Python Makefile linter, requires no credentials or installs, and the instructions match the included script; nothing obvious indicates network exfiltration or unrelated privileges, though I did not inspect the entire file contents.

Purpose & Capability

The name/description (Makefile linter) match the included Python script and SKILL.md examples. No unrelated binaries, cloud creds, or config paths are requested.

Instruction Scope

SKILL.md only instructs invoking the included Python script against Makefiles (paths or /dev/stdin) and describes flags/outputs. There are no instructions to read unrelated system state, exfiltrate data, or call external endpoints.

Install Mechanism

No install spec; code is provided inline (pure stdlib Python). Nothing is downloaded or extracted at install time.

Credentials

The skill requires no environment variables, credentials, or config paths. The code parses files provided by the user and does not declare or appear to need secrets.

Persistence & Privilege

The skill is not always-enabled and does not request elevated persistence or modify other skills. Autonomous invocation is allowed by default (normal).

Assessment

This skill appears coherent and limited to linting Makefiles, but you should still take basic precautions before installing: review the full scripts/makefile-linter.py file yourself (look for subprocess, socket, open(..., 'w') or other file-write/network calls not visible in the truncated excerpt), run it in a sandbox or CI worker with limited privileges, and avoid pointing it at sensitive system files. Also note metadata has no homepage and the publisher is unknown — if provenance matters, prefer packages with a traceable upstream or repo.

A pure-Python 3 (stdlib only) Makefile linter. Detects common issues including tab/space errors, missing .PHONY declarations, unused/undefined variables, hardcoded paths, shell portability problems, and more.

Commands

lint FILE

Lint a Makefile and report issues.

python3 scripts/makefile-linter.py lint Makefile
python3 scripts/makefile-linter.py lint /path/to/Makefile
echo -e "all:\n\techo hello" | python3 scripts/makefile-linter.py lint /dev/stdin

targets FILE

List all targets with line numbers, phony status, prerequisites, and inline comment descriptions.

python3 scripts/makefile-linter.py targets Makefile
python3 scripts/makefile-linter.py targets Makefile --format json

vars FILE

List all variable definitions with line numbers and values.

python3 scripts/makefile-linter.py vars Makefile
python3 scripts/makefile-linter.py vars Makefile --format markdown

audit FILE

Full audit combining lint results, targets list, and variables summary.

python3 scripts/makefile-linter.py audit Makefile
python3 scripts/makefile-linter.py audit Makefile --format json

Options

Flag	Description
--format text|json|markdown	Output format (default: text)
--strict	Exit code 1 on any reported issue
--ignore RULE	Ignore a specific rule (repeatable)
--min-severity error|warning|info	Minimum severity to report (default: info)

Lint Rules

Rule	Severity	Description
spaces-not-tabs	error	Recipe lines must use tabs, not spaces
duplicate-targets	error	Same target defined more than once
missing-phony	warning	Common phony target not in .PHONY
unused-variables	warning	Variable defined but never referenced
undefined-variables	warning	Variable referenced but never defined
hardcoded-paths	warning	Absolute paths in recipes
trailing-whitespace	warning	Lines ending with spaces or tabs
shell-portability	warning	Bash-specific syntax without SHELL := /bin/bash
recursive-make	info	$(MAKE) -C or make -C detected
missing-default-target	info	No all target defined
long-lines	info	Lines over 120 characters
missing-clean	info	No clean target defined

Examples

# Report only errors and warnings
python3 scripts/makefile-linter.py lint Makefile --min-severity warning

# JSON output for CI integration
python3 scripts/makefile-linter.py lint Makefile --format json

# Fail CI on any issue
python3 scripts/makefile-linter.py lint Makefile --strict

# Ignore specific rules
python3 scripts/makefile-linter.py lint Makefile --ignore recursive-make --ignore missing-clean

# Full audit in Markdown (for PR comments)
python3 scripts/makefile-linter.py audit Makefile --format markdown

# Pipe from stdin
cat Makefile | python3 scripts/makefile-linter.py lint /dev/stdin