diff --git a/repos/ports/recipes/src/coreutils-minimal/content.mk b/repos/ports/recipes/src/coreutils-minimal/content.mk
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..2d58154e4e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/repos/ports/recipes/src/coreutils-minimal/content.mk
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+# keep 'coreutils/target.inc' but not 'coreutils/target.mk'
+COREUTILS_SRC := src/noux-pkg/coreutils/target.inc
+
+include $(REP_DIR)/recipes/src/coreutils/content.mk
+
+content: src/noux-pkg/coreutils-minimal
+
+src/noux-pkg/coreutils-minimal:
+	$(mirror_from_rep_dir)
diff --git a/repos/ports/recipes/src/coreutils-minimal/hash b/repos/ports/recipes/src/coreutils-minimal/hash
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..cb2bd1cb24
--- /dev/null
+++ b/repos/ports/recipes/src/coreutils-minimal/hash
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+2017-12-08 ec96fa22e1ebe33c8c312e20f844b80f6ce5b8c7
diff --git a/repos/ports/recipes/src/coreutils-minimal/used_apis b/repos/ports/recipes/src/coreutils-minimal/used_apis
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..737e3c26a5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/repos/ports/recipes/src/coreutils-minimal/used_apis
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+libc
+noux
+posix
diff --git a/repos/ports/recipes/src/coreutils/content.mk b/repos/ports/recipes/src/coreutils/content.mk
index 59d4d68e06..2a744022df 100644
--- a/repos/ports/recipes/src/coreutils/content.mk
+++ b/repos/ports/recipes/src/coreutils/content.mk
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+# allow coreutils-minimal to exclude 'coreutils/target.mk'
+COREUTILS_SRC ?= $(addprefix src/noux-pkg/coreutils/,target.inc target.mk)
+
 content: src/noux-pkg/coreutils LICENSE
 
 PORT_DIR := $(call port_dir,$(REP_DIR)/ports/coreutils)
@@ -5,7 +8,7 @@ PORT_DIR := $(call port_dir,$(REP_DIR)/ports/coreutils)
 src/noux-pkg/coreutils:
 	mkdir -p $@
 	cp -r $(PORT_DIR)/src/noux-pkg/coreutils/* $@
-	cp -r  $(REP_DIR)/src/noux-pkg/coreutils/* $@
+	cp -r $(addprefix $(REP_DIR)/,$(COREUTILS_SRC)) $@
 
 LICENSE:
 	cp $(PORT_DIR)/src/noux-pkg/coreutils/COPYING $@
diff --git a/repos/ports/src/noux-pkg/coreutils-minimal/target.mk b/repos/ports/src/noux-pkg/coreutils-minimal/target.mk
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..d0b4eb36e5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/repos/ports/src/noux-pkg/coreutils-minimal/target.mk
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+BINARIES := cat cp ls mkdir mv rm rmdir sort tail md5sum
+
+INSTALL_TAR_CONTENT := $(addprefix bin/,$(BINARIES))
+
+PKG_DIR = $(call select_from_ports,coreutils)/src/noux-pkg/coreutils
+
+include $(REP_DIR)/src/noux-pkg/coreutils/target.inc
diff --git a/repos/ports/src/noux-pkg/coreutils/target.inc b/repos/ports/src/noux-pkg/coreutils/target.inc
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..bc84bc60e9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/repos/ports/src/noux-pkg/coreutils/target.inc
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+CONFIGURE_ARGS = --disable-acl --disable-largefile --disable-xattr \
+                 --disable-libcap --disable-nls
+
+#
+# Prevent building stdbuf because this involves the linkage of a shared
+# libary, which is not supported by Noux, yet.
+#
+CPPFLAGS += -U__ELF__
+MAKE_ENV += "MAKEINFO=true"
+
+include $(call select_from_repositories,mk/noux.mk)
diff --git a/repos/ports/src/noux-pkg/coreutils/target.mk b/repos/ports/src/noux-pkg/coreutils/target.mk
index bc84bc60e9..310689bf0c 100644
--- a/repos/ports/src/noux-pkg/coreutils/target.mk
+++ b/repos/ports/src/noux-pkg/coreutils/target.mk
@@ -1,11 +1 @@
-CONFIGURE_ARGS = --disable-acl --disable-largefile --disable-xattr \
-                 --disable-libcap --disable-nls
-
-#
-# Prevent building stdbuf because this involves the linkage of a shared
-# libary, which is not supported by Noux, yet.
-#
-CPPFLAGS += -U__ELF__
-MAKE_ENV += "MAKEINFO=true"
-
-include $(call select_from_repositories,mk/noux.mk)
+include $(PRG_DIR)/target.inc