[moduspol]

We're using img [1] with a helper script. The helper script runs a pod in the (potentially) remote Kubernetes cluster that takes the container build context as stdin, then runs img to build the image, and then imports it into the host's containerd instance. It also maps in the right host volumes so that the image build is cached between subsequent runs.

I was surprised to be unable to otherwise find a good local / remote container development workflow, but this was built to replace what we were previously doing, which is setting DOCKER_HOST to point to the remote (single-node) cluster's Docker daemon (over SSH), so that docker CLI commands would execute on that remote box.

In both cases, you'll still want to take steps to minimize the size of your container image build context, but the size of the images doesn't matter. I'm not sure if it'd fit your needs or not, though.

[1] https://github.com/genuinetools/img