v1.2.0

Added

• 👥 Contributors — a contrib.rocks avatar wall plus "How to Contribute" and
  "Releasing a New Version" guidance in the README.
• ⭐ Top Contributors — a curated table highlighting the people who shape the
  project.
• 📊 Stars — a live star-history chart in the README.
• 🌍 StarMapper — an interactive world map of the project's stargazers.
• 📦 Release automation — .github/workflows/release.yml builds a clean,
  downloadable source zip and publishes a GitHub Release on every v*.*.* tag,
  using this CHANGELOG section as the release notes (auto-generated notes as a
  fallback).
• 🤖 Agent instructions — a new AGENTS.md documenting the architecture,
  conventions, and the batched-PR → conflict-resolve → merge → release workflow.
• 📋 Release checklist — docs/ops/RELEASE_CHECKLIST.md codifies the
  pre-release validation steps.

Changed

• CONTRIBUTING.md now describes the feature-branch → pull-request → release
  workflow and how versioned releases are cut.
• README roadmap updated to mark community/release tooling as shipped.