* add README badges for CI status, coverage, reports, mutation score, benchmark speedup, Maven Central, license, and Java baseline
* generate Shields endpoint metadata for JaCoCo, PIT, and JMH results
* move badge generation logic into tools/generate-pages-badges.py to keep workflows concise and maintainable
* update Pages publishing workflow to publish badge metadata for both build-specific and latest report views
* expose published badge metadata links in the reports index for transparency and troubleshooting
feat: add custom release changelog generator based on release tag ranges and prefixed commit lines
build: include generated CHANGELOG.md in the distribution ZIP when present
ci: generate release changelog during release workflow and use it as the GitHub release body
ci: split release packaging so distZip is rebuilt after changelog generation
chore: keep changelog generation out of quality-gate and report publishing workflows
