9.12.0 / 2026-11-04

• feat: upgrade to mongodb driver 7.8 #16772 #16667
• perf: improve for document arrays: cache paths with defaults and schemas with select paths; avoid unnecessary $isModified() lookup #16595
• fix: make recompileSchema recompute derived caches and delay _preCompile() until an actual model is compiled (not subdocs or doc arrays) #16595
• fix(array): compare UUIDs by value in indexOf() so pull() and addToSet() work #16606 luantaraschi
• docs(query): remove unused use$geoWithin docs and property #16589 #16583