* **New Features**
* Stalker playback resolves channel links on request, using available channel commands and falling back to the stored command when needed.
* If a portal rejects a session, playback retries once after reconnecting.
* **Bug Fixes**
* Reading playlists or resolving playback for a different portal identity no longer replaces the published catalog or clears its refresh checkpoint.
* A failed channel playback no longer prevents other published channels from remaining available.
* **Documentation**
* Updated Stalker playback guidance to describe on-demand link resolution and session recovery.
* **Bug Fixes**
* Improved live-stream session handling during instant grace periods, including when a session has not yet been created.
* Corrected connection-limit and eviction tracking so active streams remain eligible for eviction even when their session record is unavailable.
* Improved reliability when switching between live channels under connection limits.
* **Improvements**
* Updated staged M3U overlays for Xtream providers: staged groups determine selected categories and channels, while unmatched categories remain available. Provider categories with no usable staged channels are retained.
* **Documentation**
* Clarified how staged Xtream and M3U playlists affect provider categories and channels.
- **New Features**
- Added assertions for verifying which provider account handled the latest request.
- Enabled provider-affine playback to fall back to another available provider when the pinned provider is unavailable.
- **Bug Fixes**
- Improved provider fallback handling, origin request tracking, and session updates.
- Preserved session headers when fallback stream setup fails and refreshed them after successful fallback.
- **Tests**
- Added coverage for provider-pool failover, account reuse, limits, rejection handling, and eviction behavior.
* **New Features**
* Added an opt-in runtime liveness watchdog with diagnostics, health status, and optional automatic restart.
* Added configurable stream cleanup capacity and eviction re-entry protection.
* Expanded configuration and UI access for users with playlist or user permissions, with safer data sanitization.
* Added testkit scenarios and reporting for playback, admission, provider limits, sharing, and VOD behavior.
* Added support for experimental-branch Docker builds.
* **Bug Fixes**
* Improved provider prioritization, shared playback capacity, cleanup, reconnect handling, and concurrent client behavior.
* Fixed playlist parsing for declared media types.
* Release links now use the configured destination.
