Drush Make | drupal.org

Provides the equivalent of a make script for Drupal, using Drush.

Usage: drush make [filename] where [filename] is the filename of the makefile.

Maintained by dmitrig01

Simple enough...

See http://developmentseed.org/blog/2009/oct/27/drupal-distributions-drush-make for the why and wow.

Actual example, for Collabalot by Kathleen and friends:

Make a directory, and put this text in a file (or download a make file), call it for instance collabalot-install.make, run it from that directory:

core = "6.x"
projects[] = drupal
projects[collabalot][type] = "profile"
projects[collabalot][download][type] = "git"
projects[collabalot][download][url] = "git@github.com:ceardach/collabalot.git"
projects[collabalot][download][branch] = "master"

These commands will do that, putting in the text above while in the vi editor:

mkdir collabalot
vi collabalot/collabalot-install.make
cd collabalot/
drush make collabalot-install.make