[gregwebs]

Make is designed to track build dependencies, not to execute programs, so I think the problem is the choice of name.

"just" is a utility designed to execute programs: https://github.com/casey/just#just

[dblotsky]

Is there any design decision of Make that makes it not suitable for executing programs?

[gregwebs]

Just knowing the commands and their arguments (environment vars) with make is difficult. Env vars can easily have typos. With just you can actually list out all the commands.