ArchLinux - How to properly install / update system semver

Building a Kiosk software here. I do understand (perhaps too late) that ArchLinux is in an "always-evolving" state, but, so far I got a really smooth (actually amazing) experience in using it, and got a working **stable version** of the kiosk system I'm building. And everything is working perfectly fine - *...today*. Now I'm in the phase of finishing an update.sh script which (on the Kiosk unattended machines) does the following: 1. Downloads and unzips the project's (zip) repo branch (which has a packages.txt of the needed ArchLinux existent or new packages needed for that new version to operate) 2. Update (or install) the packages listed in that packages.txt, basically similar to the output list of pacman -Qqen > "packages.txt" just, filled manually 4. Delete the old application files 5. Copy all the new zip files to that project root and run npm install and reboot the machine So far all fine - and works **The problem I'm facing is:** the inability to find out or understand how to "***freeze***" somehow a list, dep. tree, of the packages I need — ***and*** their dependency packages - after testing and making sure everything works as intended in a **release stage** (on a similar MiniPC as in production). I've found a [12y old Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/1b2nor/stable_archlike_alternative/) that suggests to switch to Debian - which would be a bummer. Am I at a dead-end? What approach would be best?