I'm not sure there's a line between the two.

To quote an old lisp saying, code is data is code.

If I want to do an image deploy, what I'll do is load the libraries into the image as part of the build, set up a 'main' function that the executable will trigger, then main will read any config files and go. This image will be an actual executable for the OS. The receiver will execute the executable and not know the difference.

edit: In terms of version control, each deploy to production would generate a tag.