Hardhat Network state persistence limits during node restarts

The Hardhat Network provides a volatile local environment designed for rapid development and testing. By default, the internal state—including deployed contracts and account balances—is stored in memory and resets whenever the npx hardhat node process is terminated.

While the framework supports snapshots for reverting state during test execution, there is a requirement to maintain a consistent environment across multiple development sessions without manually redeploying the entire contract suite.

What are the documented mechanisms for persisting the Hardhat Network state to disk between restarts? If native persistence is unavailable, what is the recommended approach for restoring a specific state without relying on external node providers?