Since 8650c6298c (doc lint: make "lint-docs" non-.PHONY, 2021-10-15), we put the output for gitlink linter into .build/lint-docs/gitlink. There are order-only dependencies to create the sequence of subdirs like: .build/lint-docs: | .build $(QUIET)mkdir $@ .build/lint-docs/gitlink: | .build/lint-docs $(QUIET)mkdir $@ where each level has to depend on the prior one (since the parent directory must exist for us to create something inside it). But the "howto" and "config" subdirectories of gitlink have the wrong dependency; they depend on "lint-docs", not "lint-docs/gitlink". This usually works out, because the LINT_DOCS_GITLINK targets which depend on "gitlink/howto" also depend on just "gitlink", so the directory gets created anyway. But since we haven't given make an explicit ordering, things can racily happen out of order. If you stick a "sleep 1" in the rule to build "gitlink" like this: ## Lint: gitlink .build/lint-docs/gitlink: | .build/lint-docs - $(QUIET)mkdir $@ + $(QUIET)sleep 1 && mkdir $@ then "make clean; make lint-docs" will fail reliably. Or you can see it as-is just by building the directory in isolation: $ make clean [...] $ make .build/lint-docs/gitlink/howto GEN mergetools-list.made GEN cmd-list.made GEN doc.dep SUBDIR ../ make[1]: 'GIT-VERSION-FILE' is up to date. SUBDIR ../ make[1]: 'GIT-VERSION-FILE' is up to date. mkdir: cannot create directory ‘.build/lint-docs/gitlink/howto’: No such file or directory make: *** [Makefile:476: .build/lint-docs/gitlink/howto] Error 1 The fix is easy: we just need to depend on the correct parent directory. Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> --- The problem starts in ab/fix-make-lint-docs, which is in master. I wasn't able to trigger the problem locally even with running 'make clean; make lint-docs' in a loop, but I did see it in the wild in a CI documentation job: https://github.com/peff/git/runs/4005766641?check_suite_focus=true#step:4:60 It would have been a lot easier to diagnose from the CI output if the mkdir lines weren't silent. I.e., if we had a $(QUIET_MKDIR) which printed "MKDIR $@" rather than nothing at all. Documentation/Makefile | 4 ++-- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/Makefile b/Documentation/Makefile index 911b6bf79c..ed656db2ae 100644 --- a/Documentation/Makefile +++ b/Documentation/Makefile @@ -472,9 +472,9 @@ print-man1: ## Lint: gitlink .build/lint-docs/gitlink: | .build/lint-docs $(QUIET)mkdir $@ -.build/lint-docs/gitlink/howto: | .build/lint-docs +.build/lint-docs/gitlink/howto: | .build/lint-docs/gitlink $(QUIET)mkdir $@ -.build/lint-docs/gitlink/config: | .build/lint-docs +.build/lint-docs/gitlink/config: | .build/lint-docs/gitlink $(QUIET)mkdir $@ LINT_DOCS_GITLINK = $(patsubst %.txt,.build/lint-docs/gitlink/%.ok,$(HOWTO_TXT) $(DOC_DEP_TXT)) $(LINT_DOCS_GITLINK): | .build/lint-docs/gitlink -- 2.33.1.1387.g97d4a0c3a8