Wouldn't it make more sense to have a tool that brings files over to the local computer, starts Vim on them, and then copies them back?

   scp my-precious-dotfiles remote:~
   trap 'ssh remote rm my-precious-dotfiles' EXIT
   ssh remote

https://github.com/cdown/sshrc

It’s not bad software, it’s also not mature. I’m currently on a phone and on vacation so this is the extent of my review. Maybe I’ll circle back around with some PRs next week

It's surprising to me how many projects can be replaced with just a line or two of shell script. This project is a slightly more sophisticated shell script that exposes a friendlier UI, but I don't see why it's needed when the alternative is much simpler, considering the target audience.

https://github.com/xxh/xxh

This installs into temp dirs and cleans it all up when you disconnect.

Personally, my old-man solution to this problem is different: always roll with defaults even if you don't like them, and don't use aliases. Not for everyone, but I can ssh into any random box and not be flailing about.

Even with OP's neat solution, it's not really going to work when you have to go through a jump box, or have to connect with a serial connection or some enterprise audit loggable ssh wrapper, etc

Working on it! :)

Remote machines usually don’t need to know your keystrokes or handle your line editing, either. There’s a lot of latency to cut out, local customization to preserve, and protocol simplification to be had.

Because the processes that use them run on the remote machines.

> I type an alias, the ssh client expands it on my local machine and send complex commands to remote.

This is not how SSH works. It merely takes your keystrokes and sends them to the remote machine, where bash/whatever reads and processes them.

Of course, you can have it work the way you imagine, it's just that it'd require a very special shell on your local machine, and a whole RAT client on the remote machine, which your special shell should be intimately aware about. E.g. TAB-completion of files would involve asking the remote machine to send the dir contents to your shell, and if your alias includes a process substitution... where should that process run?