Automake also generates a distcheck target which can be of help to ensure that a given distribution will actually work. distcheck makes a distribution, and then tries to do a VPATH build. If the target distcheck-hook is defined in your Makefile.am, then it will be invoked by distcheck after the new distribution has been unpacked, but before the unpacked copy is configured and built. Your distcheck-hook can do almost anything, though as always caution is advised. Generally this hook is used to check for potential distribution errors not caught by the standard mechanism.