[miggol]

I think the issue with dependencies is a bit overstated. There's uv for that. And shell scripts have dependencies as well! You're not guaranteed to have bash, jq, and curl on a minimal install.

That being said, for real portability of programs that have slightly outgrown the script moniker I really like Janet.

https://janet.guide/scripting/

It can compile your script to a static binary for distribution.