Gulp has a lot in common with the venerable make(1) in its approach to building targets, but make is seemingly overlooked in certain circles. It's definitely worth checking out. I wrote something of an introduction to make with the setting of managing a JS app's codebase:

http://justinpoliey.com/articles/make-for-front-end-developm...

Make is old, but still pretty relevant. Maybe some peoples' avoidances come from the association with autotools and the complexities involved in building portable C programs. Using make to manage something like a front-end codebase, which doesn't suffer that family of complexity, is pretty straightforward and kinda enjoyable.