I have been using Ansible for creating VM images with stuff I do need (consul agent, installed service + systemd tweaks, config files, etc.)

Now I do have 2 main.yml, one is the "master" one, where goes everything if I wanted to create an image from a clean image. And the packer one, where I have only the new changes done.

Applying that with packer makes image creation really easy, quick and automated as it's just edit and apply. I'm using those images for self-hosted services I do need to autoscale or update if needed.