Also, many people using rake already are often biased by how Rails uses it, but it's much more than that, and can easily be used as a make replacement, complete with freshness checks and rules.

There was an article specifically avout that on the interwebs but I can't find it anymore. These ones cover some bits as well, although they're a tad heavier on using Ruby code.

https://martinfowler.com/articles/rake.html

http://www.throwtheswitch.org/build/rake