Another useful option that only shows us the task dependency resolution and nothing more is -P or --prereqs. Unlike the --trace option, it doesn't execute the tasks, as shown in the following lines of command:

$ rake -P
rake task1
rake task2
    task1

The list contains the defined tasks and their dependencies with indentation. Take a look at the task1 text that is shifted in the last line. It is written after rake task2 and it means that task2 is dependent on task1.