diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -1,28 +1,45 @@
-
-.PHONY: clean test test-clean test-only generate-pkgs pip-packages
+.DEFAULT_GOAL := help
 
 # set by: PATH_TO_OUTDATED_PACKAGES=/some/path/outdated_packages.py
 OUTDATED_PACKAGES = ${PATH_TO_OUTDATED_PACKAGES}
 
-clean:
+.PHONY: clean
+clean: ## full clean
 	make test-clean
 	find . -type f \( -iname '*.c' -o -iname '*.pyc' -o -iname '*.so' -o -iname '*.orig' \) -exec rm '{}' ';'
 
-test:
+
+.PHONY: test
+test: ## run test-clean and tests
 	make test-clean
 	make test-only
 
-test-clean:
+
+.PHONY:test-clean
+test-clean:  ## run test-clean and tests
 	rm -rf coverage.xml htmlcov junit.xml pylint.log result
 	find . -type d -name "__pycache__" -prune -exec rm -rf '{}' ';'
+	find . -type f \( -iname '.coverage.*' \) -exec rm '{}' ';'
 
-test-only:
+
+.PHONY: test-only
+test-only: ## run tests
 	PYTHONHASHSEED=random \
 	py.test -x -vv -r xw -p no:sugar \
-	--cov=vcsserver --cov-report=term-missing --cov-report=html vcsserver
+	--cov=vcsserver --cov-report=term-missing --cov-report=html \
+	vcsserver
 
-generate-pkgs:
+
+.PHONY: generate-pkgs
+generate-pkgs: ## generate new python packages
 	nix-shell pkgs/shell-generate.nix --command "pip2nix generate --licenses"
 
-pip-packages:
+
+.PHONY: pip-packages
+pip-packages: ## show outdated packages
 	python ${OUTDATED_PACKAGES}
+
+
+.PHONY: help
+help:
+	@grep -E '^[a-zA-Z_-]+:.*?## .*$$' $(MAKEFILE_LIST) | sort | awk 'BEGIN {FS = ":.*?## "}; {printf "\033[36m%-24s\033[0m %s\n", $$1, $$2}'