I'm just starting to review it but I wanted to say upfront:

Added a subfolder to the .cache directory to allow concurrent builds.

👍 to that! I meant to do that. Thanks!

I think choco_packages should stay and that profiles packages should be added on top. For simplicity, it can be done in two different steps, it's not important.

I can do it, however, as I said in another thread, wouldn't it be cool if we could generate kali vm with malboxes, if so, choco_packages should be at least renamed to packages ?

if so, choco_packages should be at least renamed to packages ?

I agree but let's support choco_packages for a while to give time to people to upgrade their configs. Remove it from example config but in the code if there is no packages entry, honor the choco_packages entry if it exists.

I'm running a test dry-run build on all supported OSes with that branch right now.