The reason to use build and deployment tools has nothing to do with _how_ the tools actually work. Deployment issues are mostly issues of consistency and access

The reason to use build and deployment tools has nothing to do with _how_ the tools actually work. Deployment issues are mostly issues of consistency and access. Who runs the build/deploy, from where, with what arguments, when? Using a CI/CD pipeline isn't just wrapping an scp call in a bash script, they provide tools for managing the when, the where, the why. Do you think using only scp will prevent you from deploying the wrong artifact? Or deploying to all-but-one production node? Or scping but forgetting to run the nohup? Honestly setting up a github action to do this takes very little time, doesn't depend on containers, doesn't really add complexity to your stack. CircleCI exists and is equally easy. To suggest that your above-posted script is just as good is, to me, mostly just NIH + developer bikeshedding. YAGNI is great for being honest about the needs of an org and ignoring tools or frameworks that aren't appropriate, but there really are tools that exist that add consistency in ways that don't really increase complexity all that much.