>>>>> On Sat, 08 Jan 2022, David Seifert wrote:
 
> +	cp "${cp_args[@]}" "${src}"/. "${dest}"/
> +	ret=${?}
> +
>  	if [[ ${ret} -ne 0 ]]; then
>  		die "${MULTIBUILD_VARIANT:-(unknown)}: merging image failed."
>  	fi

This could be further simplified to "cp ... || die ..." (and no need to
declare ret above).