Cloning is unsafe for anything but backup and restore to the same exact device. There is no good way to do it. There will be artifacts from development and that will cause serious security and reliability issues.
If you don’t care about security, like if you’re just making images for home use, go ahead, however, the “right way” is the way outlined in the l4t documentation: to master an image using Nvidia’s scripts. It can be done in a VM and that can be automated. The right way is not always the easiest way, but it avoids techincal debt.