Declarative won't necessarily give you cattle. What you want is a continuous automated build process, and immutable images. That way you have a reliable image t

Declarative won't necessarily give you cattle. What you want is a continuous automated build process, and immutable images. That way you have a reliable image that has been tested and you know works, you have documented the build steps, and get an error when the build fails. Over time you can make it more declarative, if being imperative is adding a lot of toil. The important thing to remember is that improvements should happen gradually in small chunks; you don't have to have a perfect cattle system out of the gate, but you should be working your way there.