[andreineculau]

When you say everything contained in the project, you forget that there's more to life than just node/javascript. Just two silly examples: you cannot run/deploy your API backend without docker/kubernetes/aws-cli/etc, nor your mobile app even if it's in JavaScript (react-native).

The only way to keep to node/javascript is if you only develop libraries (a website that doesn't get deployed -> still on library level).

[kall]

That's true, kind of. If you have those kinds of tasks, I see the appeal of the makefile over various commands in package.json that won't run after a simple npm install anyway. In practice, you may be building your react native app with EAS Build and deploy your website/api to Vercel or to AWS with pulumi. That's all still npm dependencies.

[gedy]

API backends/middleware can be Node.js too