From bf05388362d6ded4c88ec84110e789644977c7e1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Quanzheng Long <qlong@indeed.com>
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2021 21:23:46 -0700
Subject: [PATCH 1/2] apply approach from comment

---
 Makefile | 1 +
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 0554b3fd806..b1fd7738287 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -190,6 +190,7 @@ THRIFT_GEN := $(subst idls/thrift/,.build/,$(THRIFT_FILES))
 
 # thrift is done when all sub-thrifts are done
 $(BUILD)/thrift: $(THRIFT_GEN) | $(BUILD)
+	$(if $(THRIFT_GEN),,$(error "idls directory is empty, please use 'git submodule update idls/' to checkout submodule and retry"))  # thrift_gen or thrift_files, either should work fine
 	@touch $@
 
 # how to generate each thrift book-keeping file.

From 73f728feab491a5b9252ef1094d8f136e7eda40e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Quanzheng Long <qlong@indeed.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2021 15:36:48 -0700
Subject: [PATCH 2/2] skip thrift too

---
 Makefile | 1 +
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index b1fd7738287..c3150d16b51 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -254,6 +254,7 @@ $(BUILD)/protoc: $(PROTO_FILES) $(BIN)/$(PROTOC_VERSION_BIN) $(BIN)/protoc-gen-g
 .fake-thrift: | $(BIN) $(BUILD)
 	touch $(BIN)/thriftrw $(BIN)/thriftrw-plugin-yarpc
 	$(if $(THRIFT_GEN),touch $(THRIFT_GEN),) # maybe ignoring empty idl folder
+	touch $(BUILD)/thrift #skip thrift too
 
 # ====================================
 # other intermediates