• [Feature] Add Processing::WorkersPool with dynamic thread pool scaling via #scale, nil sentinel-based worker exit for downscaling, and worker.scaling.up/worker.scaling.down instrumentation events.
• [Enhancement] Add per-partition generation tracking to AssignmentsTracker to distinguish first-time assignments from reassignments.
• [Enhancement] Make liveness listeners fiber-safe.
• [Fix] Include orphaned node detection in Pro swarm liveness listener.
• [Fix] Report liveness on connection.listener.before_fetch_loop so nodes send an initial healthy report before the first consumption.
• [Fix] Fire liveness events during wait_pinging so nodes continue reporting health status during shutdown with active LRJ jobs.
• [Maintenance] Use namespaced topic naming format in all integration specs for consistent traceability.
• [Fix] Fix DataCollector::SPEC_HASH producing non-deterministic hashes for pristine and poro specs by passing the original spec path via KARAFKA_SPEC_PATH env var.
• [Maintenance] Add bin/tests_topics_hashes script for looking up spec files by their topic name hash prefix.
• [Change] Require karafka-rdkafka >= 0.26.1 to support upcoming features relying on low-level Rdkafka APIs.