I sometimes need to implement update tasks.
A basic setup can look like this:

@goal 'x-created'
@reached_if test -f x
  touch x

@goal 'x-deleted'
@reached_if ! test -e x
  rm x

Now the update task would look like this:

@goal 'x-updated'
@depends_on 'x-deleted'
@depends_on 'x-created'

This does not work, since the reached-checks are checked during build graph construction, as far as I can tell.

Workarounds:

• Calling ./makesure in x-updated instead of dependencies.
• Simply executing ./makesure x-updated twice.
• Removing checks (not very useful).

I could think of ways for makesure to support this better:

• reached_if-checks could happen before goal execution (but I guess that would change too much of makesure's behavior).
• A variable could be set for goals that were invoked directly from the CLI, and unset for dependencies.
• More general, a variable that contains the "depenency depth level", à la $SHLVL.
• Some "always execute" pseudo-parameter that could be passed to every goal.

I'm writing this primarily to start discussion, since I use makesure quite heavily at the moment. What do you think about this?