We assume it's for OpenVZ scenario, so chroot
isolation level is used.
The images are self-contained - they include enough metadata for starting and configuration. No incremental imaging and persistence are necessary for a minimal production-ready run. Stopping can delete the chroot as well, and packed images can be deleted just after unpacking.
No provision for per-deployment configuration is required for initial operations. If the same image is to be deployed with slightly different configurations, many different images should be prepared instead.
A rate-limited infinite auto-restart is a reasonable default that is enough for initial production operations.