Update: after a lot of manual package installation of dependencies on the server side to get the appropriate server running, I’ve managed to install https://nuclide.io which gives me a nice local graphical file browser for editing remote files within https://atom.io as if they were local … probably overkill … but now i can start navigating and hacking code efficiently on my remote dev server!
PS most of the work to achieve this was on the server side, so suggest you need a persistent dev server which obviously comes with a cost. The upside is you can have many clients which are quick to set up … just install Atom add the Nuclide add-in, enter your server credentials and you are good to go! Laptop, home workstation … easy!