From df763e6d73cb3e7afa5aa84fbc75aed6c87b3599 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Miquel Sabaté Solà <mssola@mssola.com>
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2025 22:37:39 +0200
Subject: Pick xa65 by default if that exists
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And let it pass the --strict and --stats parameters to the underlying
nasm command.

Signed-off-by: Miquel Sabaté Solà <mssola@mssola.com>
---
 .gitignore      |  1 +
 CONTRIBUTING.md | 10 ++++------
 Makefile        | 18 +++++++++++++-----
 3 files changed, 18 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)

diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 51d8263..b1b1f83 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
 out/
 config/generated.s
+.nasm/
 TODO
diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index 215034b..133aa85 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -41,14 +41,12 @@ In order to test your changes, I'd go this way:
 
 You can pass the following arguments to `make`:
 
-- `CC65`: the compiler to use (defaults to `cl65`).
-- `CCOPTS`: the options to use for the compiler (defaults to `--target nes`).
+- `CC65`: the compiler to use (defaults to
+  [xa65](https://github.com/mssola/tools.nes) if that exists, otherwise `cl65`).
+- `CCOPTS`: the options to use for the compiler (defaults to `--target nes` and
+  it adds `--strict` if using `xa65`).
 - `RUBY`: the ruby to use (defaults to `ruby`).
 
-Note that you can also set `DEBUG=1`, and with that you will pass sobre extra
-debugging options, like telling `cl65` to also output a `out/labels.txt` file
-with memory address on the symbols that have been evaluated.
-
 ## Modifying assets
 
 I am using [NEXXT studio 3](https://frankengraphics.itch.io/nexxt) for managing
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 91bd0dd..b840d78 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -7,13 +7,21 @@ else
 	Q =
 endif
 
+# CC65 is set to `xa65` if that exists, otherwise we resort to `cl65` by default.
+XA65_BIN := $(shell command -v xa65 2>/dev/null)
+ifneq ($(XA65_BIN),)
+	CC65   ?= xa65
+else
+	CC65   ?= cl65
+endif
+
 # NOTE: you can configure `CC65` and `CCOPTS` with the compiler and its options
-# that you might require. Moreover, if you pass `DEBUG` to `make`, then an
-# `out/labels.txt` file will be generated.
-CC65   ?= cl65
+# that you might require.
 CCOPTS ?= --target nes
-ifeq "$(DEBUG)" "1"
-CCOPTS   += -g -Ln out/labels.txt
+
+# Be strict and more verbose when using xa65.
+ifeq ($(CC65),xa65)
+	CCOPTS += --strict --stats
 endif
 
 # Ruby is used to generate the files on `config/values/`. If it can't be found,
-- 
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