I wouldn't call it a minor annoyance when it's a way of working you're practicing for 6-8 hours a day. I am best placed to determine what tools I work with bes

I wouldn't call it a minor annoyance when it's a way of working you're practicing for 6-8 hours a day. I am best placed to determine what tools I work with best to get work done. You wouldn't get an electrician in to do some work and then decide you can suddenly prescribe the tools they use. I just don't have the patience for this sort of nonsense, there are a dozen clients who won't micromanage the operating system, editor and way of working that I'll be using to get the job done. With that said, obviously it's a two-way street and some willingness to be flexible needs to be shown on both sides. If $client wants me to sync my work with their $uniqueVersionControlSystem then fine, I'm willing to put in the extra effort to try and meet their specific needs within reason. But that doesn't extend to working inside a client-provided VM, using a client-prescribed OS image, using a client-specified IDE or making other such major changes to my established ways of doing business. And in fact any client trying to micromanage this sort of stuff is a massive IR35 working practices red flag over here in the UK. You're better off terminating the agreement and signing something else as a SoftEng contractor.