diff --git a/extra/build-support/authors.txt b/extra/build-support/authors.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..7c1b2f2279
--- /dev/null
+++ b/extra/build-support/authors.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Doug Coleman
diff --git a/extra/build-support/build-support-tests.factor b/extra/build-support/build-support-tests.factor
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..1f855d5701
--- /dev/null
+++ b/extra/build-support/build-support-tests.factor
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+! Copyright (C) 2010 Doug Coleman.
+! See http://factorcode.org/license.txt for BSD license.
+USING: build-support sequences tools.test ;
+IN: build-support.tests
+
+[ f ] [ factor.sh-make-target empty? ] unit-test
diff --git a/extra/build-support/build-support.factor b/extra/build-support/build-support.factor
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..177042e186
--- /dev/null
+++ b/extra/build-support/build-support.factor
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+! Copyright (C) 2010 Doug Coleman.
+! See http://factorcode.org/license.txt for BSD license.
+USING: arrays io io.backend io.encodings.utf8 io.launcher ;
+IN: build-support
+
+CONSTANT: factor.sh-path "resource:build-support/factor.sh"
+
+: factor.sh-make-target ( -- string )
+    factor.sh-path normalize-path "make-target" 2array
+    utf8 [ readln ] with-process-reader ;
diff --git a/extra/build-support/platforms.txt b/extra/build-support/platforms.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..509143d863
--- /dev/null
+++ b/extra/build-support/platforms.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+unix