Back when it was SUSE Studio, I could create a baseline "image" and incorporate specific packages and such, and even customize certain aspects of the build, to create a bootable / installable ISO that was essentially my finished system. I'm trying to find a way to do this with the new Studio Express and am not seeing it.

My interest in this previously was to be able to have bootable images of "complete" systems that could attach to the storage in the local machine (including the logs) and run. This allowed me to move through versions easily since I could build a new machine using the specific version I wanted and then boot THAT disc instead of the original one.

Another benefit to this was the ability to bring a system back online very quickly in the event that the OS drive (I run some machines off of USB flash drives which is admittedly hard on them) had a failure of any sort.

Should I just plan to be my own local network install server and create the AutoYast files for each server by hand? Or, is this still possible with Studio Express?

Note: I have no interest in building container images yet this seems to be what it supports predominantly.

https://software.opensuse.org/search...studio+express returned no such package. On my 15.1 PC, the menu starter says SUSE Studio Imagewriter, but the installed package is simply imagewriter. Where do you find this Express version?

It isn't something you install into a SUSE box... It's an online tool. SUSE Studio was around for a very long time and then merged with Open Build Service to form SUSE Studio Express.

https://studioexpress.opensuse.org/