[yocto] Doubts about image "equalness"

[Alan Martinovic]

Hi,
I'm hoping to get opinions on a doubt regarding a certain yocto related
problem.

We have a following images in place:

* production-image.bb
        * core features, max security

* beta-image.bb
        * require production-image.bb
        * added logging, reduced security for dev intervention


At the moment, we first build the beta end if all is good we again build the
production.
This means we need to build and test twice even when no flaws are found in the
beta image.

We do that because, not knowing the internals of yocto enough,
it seems to risky to run the tests on the beta-image and afterwards
just ship the production-image assuming they are the same.

Because of that, a second approach has been suggested in which yocto
doesn't build the beta-image, but it gets created by manually modifying the
built production-image binary.

The core problem is we don't know the core of yocto that well to vouch
for the yocto option, on the other hand, this could be just a
psychological problem
and the manual approach is as dangerous if not worse :)

Did anyone how similar problems?
Would like to hear your opinions on how you approached them?

Be Well,
Alan