optimize join inner materialization of single keys (#8405)
parallelize sorted group tuple materialization (#8387)
improve materialization of huge cardinality group tuples (#8382)
improve group_tuples materialization (#8375)
conversion speedups from polars int64 timestamps to python temporal types:
- ~35% faster → python date (#8339)
- ~15% faster → python time (#8352)
- ~10% faster → python datetime (#8339)

✨ Enhancements

allow existing item method to optionally take row/col indices (#8412)
allow negative 'arange' expression (#8413)
warn if argument is not explicitly sorted (#8409)
.to_numpy(use_pyarrow=False) for Object and Boolean (#8397)
new hypothesis strategy that can generate data for List dtypes (#8400)
offer cleaner usage pattern for Config object in context-manager context (#8394)
add support for SQL "IN" expr (#8396)
add a "signed" param to Series.is_integer (#8383)
add is_integer (#8373)
raise error on invalid dict aggregation (#8371)
cli output mode & sql read_json (#8336)
more informative keyerror on invalid getitem (#8320)

🐞 Bug fixes

infer supertype in json serde (#8411)
duration on empty df (#8403)
don't inadvertently set Series initialised with nested tuple data as Object dtype (#8401)
use physical in streaming unique global table (#8390)
recursively bubble up all dtypes in list cast (#8386)
is_in struct logical types (#8378)
fix nested null parquet read (#8372)
fix logical type in ListChunked::new_from_index (#8367)
fix unintentional loading of hypothesis profile (#8362)
bubble up logical type in recursive list cast (#8356)
ensure that iter_rows doesn't return nested Timestamp values (#8359)
implement clone_inner for all series (#8357)
add missing __hash__ support to Field, include "time_zone" in Datetime hash, fix Struct hash (#8354)
fix fill_null for categorical (#8353)
time.cast(str) as strftime (#8351)
fix logical dtypes in parallel list collection (#8349)
improve logical types of explode operation (#8348)
logical type in anonymous list builders (#8346)
address potential error caused by float division on time_unit scaling (#8337)
escape csv header names if they contain special chars (#8331)
nested struct/list/categorical logical/physical (#8334)
fix struct schema argument (#8327)
fix precision issue when converting pl.Datetime("ms") to Python datetime (#8332)
fix deserialize empty list (#8326)
List<Null> consistency (#8325)
fix coalesce schema (#8324)
don't do null propagation (#8322)
validate window_size user input in rolling_expr (#8318)
ensure invalid list eval raises (#8317)
fix typing overloads of read_excel (#8300)

🛠️ Other improvements

new hypothesis strategy that can generate data for List dtypes (#8400)
update duration docstring/example (#8392)
Upgrade ruff (#8380)
enhanced parametric testing for temporal dtypes (#8347)
Minor update to strptime (#8345)
adjust pytest config so as not to inadvertently prevent test debugging in IPython consoles (#8308)
add newline in pl.DataFrame.pivot docs (#8307)

Thank you to all our contributors for making this release possible! @JoonHong-Kim, @MarcoGorelli, @StefanBRas, @alexander-beedie, @avimallu, @grantmcdermott, @jonashaag, @rben01, @ritchie46, @stinodego and @universalmind303