For example if you have something like
(library
(name mylib_c)
(public_name mylib.c)
(modules)
(self_stubs_build_archive mylib_c_stubs)
(rule
(deps (source_tree c))
(targets libmylib_c_stubs.a dllmylib_c_stubs.so)
(action (progn
(chdir c (run make)))
(copy c/libmylib.a libmylib_c_stubs.a)
(copy c/libmylib.so dllmylib_c_stubs.so)))
then it introduces dependency to mylib/c/libmylib.a
See https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/dune-depend-on-non-dune-libraries-in-the-workspace/3150/7 and https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/strange-error-in-dune-building/2979/3 for more context.
Opening an issue, since I wasn't able to find anything in the issue tracker about this. Would be awesome to fix this one day and we have to remove make -C c before calling dune in our buildscripts.