I use tramp for minor config file editting, it's not too bad. But when coding remotely, I like to setup 2 copies of code, one local, one remote. I always work on the local copy, then when I need to build, I use rsync to push the local code to the remote server for building remotely (because only the remote server has the os/compiler/cpu resources). It works great😁
I have developed a very similar scheme for myself independently (haven't heard of z before, but thanks). A further idea is another command <code>e</code>, which is used like: <code>e reg1 reg2...</code>, and it will query z's database to see if there is a file in z's directory which matches the regs, and if found, open that file in Emacs. A similar command <code>f</code> will only print the path, so that <code>firefox $(f reg1 reg2)</code> will open the found file using firefox.
Thanks for the info, it must be the relatime that I saw this behavior. Were it noatime, this idea won't have worked at all (I think I have seen noatime used on embedded devices).