Makefile cannot find include path - c++

Question

A Makefile in the subdirectory of my project doesn't see the include path ONLY when it is used from the main Makefile of my project. I don't have much experience with Makefiles and a lot of what I've been reading is pretty confusing. Here is the layout of my directory (with what I have so far since I just started the project):
main/
Inventory/
Item.h
Item.cpp
Makefile
tools/
include/
json/
json.h
jsoncpp.cpp
Makefile
main.cpp
Makefile
Here is the Makefile in the main directory:
INCLUDE = -IInventory/
CC = g++
DEP = tools/jsoncpp.o Inventory/Item.o
Main: main.o $(DEP)
cd tools/ && make
cd Inventory/ && make
$(CC) -o Main main.o $(DEP) $(INCLUDE)
main.o main.cpp
$(CC) -c main.cpp $(INCLUDE)
Here is the Makefile in the tools directory:
INCLUDE = -Iinclude/
CC = g++
jsoncpp.o: jsoncpp.cpp
$(CC) -c jsoncpp.cpp $(INCLUDE)
When I call make from the tools/, it works just fine. But when I call make from the main directory I get this error:
g++ -c -o tools/jsoncpp.o tools/json.cpp
tools/jsoncpp.cpp:76:23: fatal error: json/json.h: No such file or directory
#include "json/json.h"
^
compilation terminated.
Now I partially believe that it can't find the include directory for whatever reason, but the first line in that error is fairly odd to me because of that weird gap between g++ and -c. Since my project will soon get pretty big, how can I fix this?

Answer 1

If it's in -I directive, it should be #include <json/json.h> otherwise #include "include/json/json.h"
EDIT: Include directory is taken from current directory, so in main/ you have to use -Itools/include
Solution: Implicit rules were used so correct variable CXXFLAGS+=$(INCLUDE) must be set for compilation. See: make manual
And the main problem is Main: main.o $(DEP) - files in DEP must exist already otherwise it'll use implicit rules. Later after that cd tools/ && make is done.

Answer 2

#include <json/json.h> <- preprocessor will search in all includes paths
see gcc Include Syntax :
#include <file> This variant is used for system header files. It searches for a file named file in a standard list of system
directories. You can prepend directories to this list with the -I
option (see Invocation).
#include "file" This variant is used for header files of your own program. It searches for a file named file first in the directory
containing the current file, then in the quote directories and then
the same directories used for . You can prepend directories to
the list of quote directories with the -iquote option.