Build tools don't always get the attention they deserve. Tools like TeamCity and Jenkins allow users to easily create builds with a user interface. However, your build logic is tied to your CI server. Tools like Cake allow you to decouple your builds from your build server and also provide the advantage that you can run the build locally, which is great. Let us consider the build server debugging dance of commit, wait, fail, commit, wait, fail, commit, wait, success. With a build that runs locally that cycle is shortened because you can run it locally and you have a working build on every commit. In addition to these benefits, Cake uses C# and the .NET framework , putting thousands of libraries easily in reach for creating plugins to elevate your builds to another layer. We will explore build tools, focusing on Cake. You will be introduced to the Cake DSL, the basic build file, and the addin structure for Cake, and we may even build an addin.