Yes, here's a few excellent articles that explain what problems build tools solve and why they exist:

- https://sunsetglow.net/posts/frontend-build-systems.html

- https://www.innoq.com/en/articles/2021/12/what-does-a-bundle...

- https://www.swyx.io/jobs-of-js-build-tools

Loosely put, they're the equivalent of all of `gcc` or `rustc`: compile the source code, run type checking, output object files, transform into the final combined executable output format.