Is it possible to squash only the final stage in a multi-stage build?

[cyqsimon]

I want to take full advantage of layer caching, so that latter repeated builds can take shorter time. But I also want to squash the final published image to minimise its size.

So is it possible to only squash the final stage of a multi-stage build?

[cyqsimon]

Currently if I naively do podman build --squash, it would appear that since all stages are squashed, there's effectively no caching at all. Steps in the build stage(s) that can (and should) be done only once and then be cached are actually run every time. Obviously this is not ideal.

Now, it is possible that I am a victim of the XY problem here. If that's the case, please let me know what the better way is. In short, I want my expensive build steps to be cached, but I also want the final image to be small.