For Visual Studio components that are versioned (like the C++ compilers/libraries), the version number is included in the component name.

You still have to install the tool that processes pyproject.toml so that doesn’t seem fair to hold against it. You are right that you still have to know whether to install 2022 or 2026.

Curl the VS Build tools exe, then run the build tools command to install what's in the .vsconfig.