A device receives a request for a second artifact, where the request identifies a first artifact that is different than the second artifact. The device obtains at least one transformation for transforming the first artifact into the second artifact, and uses the obtained at least one transformation to transform the first artifact into the second artifact. The device launches or instantiate a compute resource or a logical disk volume using the second artifact, where the compute resource includes one of a virtual machine, a baremetal, or a container. The first artifact and the second artifact each includes an image or a snapshot.