Well I use nix so its tracked in git and I can mostly rely on data-only backups then. It makes it so much easier to have multiple laptops (e.g. I have a "completely personal" and "contract work" laptop which have a lot of overlap but are not the same).
> It makes it so much easier to have multiple laptops
You're getting away from having a pet then.
And once you consider that you might have a third laptop for something work related and be able to duplicate the base configuration then you no longer have pets and you just need configuration management.
That isn't even the common use case of most IT professionals, much less most laptop users.
Why do you have a "documented pipeline" for your laptop?
And I never bother keeping notes, I just back it up so that the whole thing is recoverable.