Is it possible to pregenerate m3u8 file? (the playlist only) and skip the transcoding?

Question

I am trying to create a media server, and only want to transcode video when it's played. However I need the playlist in advance so that the client play can load the video metadata. Is this possible?

I want to do something like this:

Client -> GET m3u8 (pregenerated in advance)
Client -> GET ts -> Transcode only this single ts file
Client -> GET ts -> Transcode only this single ts file
Client -> GET ts -> Transcode only this single ts file

I don't want to transcode the entire video at once, I want to be able to only transcode the part that is requested.

Is this possible? Also open to using MPEG-DASH instead if needed.