For me it is writting docker compose files describing my services. I like to test them on my machine before pushing them to the server(s). But I guess that’s my own fault for not using something like portainer or even SSHFS.
What’s the most annoying / painful step for you?
You can have a central repo for your files. I have a different folder for each server. VSCode has access to these folders to edit any data needed.
Most of the compose files are managed in Portainer, but some of the containers need to exist outside of Portainer.