Standard procedure for building Ubuntu .deb packages from source

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I need to tweak some mouse params in libinput. But in general, suppose I have a package installed in Ubuntu, and I want to download the exact same version source (presumably using apt), make minor changes, and build to a local .deb file which I will then install to replace the one packaged by Ubuntu. What are simple instructions to set up such a build environment, and what are typical commands used to build? Note that I need a .deb installer in the end, "make install" is not an option.