scons VS CMake

The most comprehensive make alternative in python I've seen is Scons (https://scons.org/)

It would be worth to see how they tackles some of the challenges you're looking into.

Blurb from the website:

SCons is an Open Source software construction tool. Think of SCons as an improved, cross-platform substitute for the classic Make utility with integrated functionality similar to autoconf/automake and compiler caches such as ccache. In short, SCons is an easier, more reliable and faster way to build software.

SCons never got popular enough to escape the niches it grew up in.

i literally do almost this exact thing with the game im working on. situation is: im the programmer, working with an artist who cant code (and im not going to make them edit json on an ipad lmao) so i have a google drive spreadsheet where they put metadata for the items they make. i have a script that uses rclone to copy this down as a csv, along with the image assets. then i wrote a python extension for scons that converts it to json (and also does some image processing/cropping because evidently procreate's export options are very limited). from here, i originally had an import plugin that would automatically import the json files as godot resources. however, i eventually decided to instead write a standalone script in gdscript (invoked with godot --script --headless myscript.gd) that would do the conversion ahead of import, mainly because i wanted to be able to have the game assets be more self-contained (like, so that an item has its texture in the same resource file instead of in a separate file referenced from the json). i then modified my scons build scripts to call this script.

it's a build tool, like cmake. https://scons.org/ you have to install it.

Another IDE: CLion CLion is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) developed by JetBrains specifically for C and C++ programming languages. It provides a wide range of features tailored to the needs of C and C++ developers, offering a productive and efficient environment for writing, debugging, and maintaining code. Here's an overview of CLion:

Not mentioned in the article is JetBrains CLion. Best C/C++ IDE to come along in decades.

https://www.jetbrains.com/clion/

Indeed, we took the idea from Sysprogs and their corresponding CMake fork. And published our fork here: https://github.com/JetBrains/CMake/tree/sysprog-rebased2. And we were considering the upstream.