Yes, you can have docker container images that only contain the actual binary you want to run. But if you are using a VM, you don't even need the Linux kernel:

Yes, you can have docker container images that only contain the actual binary you want to run. But if you are using a VM, you don't even need the Linux kernel: some systems let you compiler your program to run directly on the hypervisor. See eg https://github.com/hermit-os/hermit-rs https://github.com/hermit-os/hermit-rs or https://mirage.io/ https://mirage.io/