For anyone reading this thread in the future, I've been having success using araelium package builder. So far I've had no issue installing to the users ~/library folder. There's a fully featured free trial (with a watermark), and the scripting language is javascript, so pretty familiar to anyone who uses hisescript during plugin development!

https://www.araelium.com/packagebuilder

Thanks to everyone who has replied to the thread and given helpful info!