It should be noted that just specifically does something make was not designed for but is often conscripted into: it’s not a build tool, it’s a command runner.

So when you run a command it runs the dependencies then the commands, in full, every time.

I very much prefer that usually, because either the underlying tooling handles checking if all’s right or there is no such checking to do and it would be a problem.

But if you expect just to build your C project and handle not touching stuff which doesn’t need to be, you’ll be disappointed.