deploy-wrt is a new Python tool that I am working on which facilitates remote deployment and configuration of OpenWRT machines.
The tool works primarily by running sysupgrade through an SSH connection to backup and restore system state. The tool also manages the set of installed packages. The current design uses APK rather than opkg, so the tool is currently only compatible with snapshot builds of OpenWRT.
I don't know if anyone has built something like this in the past, but I found it helpful to be able to manage the configuration of my OpenWRT machines with code stored in a Git repository.