I need to scp a file off a server then parse that into json with my tap. I'm leaning towards an extension but it's looking I could just call scp directly in my extractor. Is there a reason to go with an extension? Is there already a solution for SCP?

Looks like

tap-spreadsheets-anywhere

supports SCP: https://github.com/ets/tap-spreadsheets-anywhere?tab=readme-ov-file#how-to-use-it

I tried that but it unforutnately is too rigid for our use case. We will have some config files that we need to parse that aren't the same across every line and aren't very csv-ey

I would bake i t into the tap then. No reason to use an extension (utility?) I don't think - you would have the overhead of another plugin to manage/invoke.