[skydhash]

> And emacs is too bloated to fit too, conveniently.

If you connect via ssh, you could use Tramp. It does not install emacs on the target, but instead use a somewhat permanent connection as a tunnel for most emacs commands (transparently). Works too with docker, podman, distrobox, etc,...

[cozzyd]

yep, it's a shame vscode doesn't do something similar and instead copies a huge runtime (evidently, multiple times?!?) onto unsuspecting hosts.