chore(build): the feature matrix lives only in a 1,088-line hand-enumerated Makefile

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Assessment

Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Newbie friendliness
35/100
Issue type
Refactor
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
rust
Domain
build-system, ci-cd

Research direction

Start by comparing the Makefile targets build, test, clippy, doc, and test-embedded with the CI calls in ci.yml at commit d9c7be0. Map the existing feature combinations and check whether any are missing from a target, then inspect the crate manifests to identify declared features. Choose one of the suggested approaches and add a check that every declared feature appears in at least one tested combination.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

enhancement

Problem

Makefile is 1,088 lines, and most of it is hand-written cargo build|test|clippy|doc|check --package … --features "…" lines, one per crate and feature combination, repeated across the build, test, clippy, doc and test-embedded targets. CI calls these targets (make clippy, make test, make test-embedded, make check, make all), so the Makefile is the only place the supported feature matrix is written down.

Consequences:

  • Adding or renaming a feature means editing the same combination in up to five targets, plus the crate manifest. Nothing checks that the five stay aligned, so a combination can be built but not linted, or linted but not documented.
  • The matrix cannot be read by tools (e.g. to check that every declared feature is exercised at least once).
  • It is the main reason the deprecated feature aliases are still in use in-tree.

Suggested work

Options, roughly in order of effort:

  1. Define each crate's feature combinations once as Make variables and have build / test / clippy / doc iterate over them.
  2. Move the matrix into a small data file (TOML) consumed by an xtask or script, with the Makefile targets as thin wrappers.
  3. Use cargo hack --feature-powerset (with exclusions) for the host crates and keep explicit lists only for the embedded targets.

Whatever the choice, add a check that every feature declared in a crate manifest appears in at least one tested combination.

Notes

Based on reading the Makefile and ci.yml at d9c7be0. I did not check for combinations that are already missing from one of the targets; that would be a useful first step.

Dominant language
Rust
Stars
101
Forks
20
Avg merge
2h 33m
Merged PRs (30d)
90

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