i used to see a project with CMakeLists.txt files and go "all right, so it's black magic"
it's more high-level in reality though. instead of passing linker flags, you're telling CMake to use your compiler toolchain to do stuff like "include everything needed for library X and enable these compile flags for it"
@lore Its still black magic, you just became the magician :)
@freemo we got lucky with a few things