I am using VS Code with the Julia extension, Git (and GitKraken – vg but not free). Every time I make a change and recompile, the machine handshakes with github for a while until the recompiled version is available locally,
Is there a reasonably slick way to do the recomple work locally (I am using a local repository, a copy of one on github)?
recompile what ? julia itself ? julia code in a package ? precompiling a package ? compiling a jll ? unclear.
I am recompiling pure Julia packages that I am writing. I have no need to recompile Julia nor to recompile e.g. C++.
Julia packages are not compiled as far as i can tell, I still cannot understand what you mean 
Either your wording is weird, either I miss knowledge, dunno. Do you have a MWE of what you type in the Julia terminal to “recompile the package” ? is it ] precompile ?
What exactly are your indications that any compilation happens somewhere else than on your local machine?
oh well that is entirely different 
thank you for the clarification.