🚀 Release v8.4.0

[chrisjsewell]

Release v8.4.0

Minor release. Headline changes: the needflow portable vocabulary (:direction:, named legends, :show_link_names: values), the new needs_card_layouts configuration, list2need rebuilt to create its needs directly, and max_items on every view.

Changes

• Bump version to 8.4.0 in sphinx_needs/__init__.py
• Bump NEEDS_VERSION to 8.4.0 in the Docker workflow
• Stamp the changelog's "Unreleased" section as 8.4.0 — release date 27.08.2026, the v8.3.1...v8.4.0 compare link, and a release summary
• Move the needtable :style_col: deprecation out of "Improvements" into a "Deprecations" heading, matching 8.2.0
• Add the one missing entry: 📚 list2need documentation corrections (🧪 Pin list2need behaviour and correct its documentation #1788)

docs/_static/tutorial_needs.json is not regenerated this time — #1755 stopped tracking it, so unlike 8.2.0 and 8.3.0 there is nothing to commit for it. There are no .. versionadded:: unreleased markers to stamp either; every one in docs/ was already written as 8.4.0.

Coverage

All 24 commits since 8.3.1 were reviewed against the changelog. 19 user-facing changes all have entries; 5 are internal or convention-exempt (#1747, #1764 — docs/ubproject.toml only; #1763 — README only; #1781 — tests only; #1769 — refactor, filed under "Internal changes"). One gap was found and filled: #1788's list2need documentation corrections.

Release steps after merge

1. Merge this PR
2. Create and push tag 8.4.0 — the release pipeline (.github/workflows/release.yaml) publishes to PyPI on tag push

[chrisjsewell]

CI note: Docs-Linkcheck is red with exactly one broken link — the new :Full Changelog: compare URL (compare/8.3.1...8.4.0), which 404s until the 8.4.0 tag exists. This is inherent to the release convention, not a defect in the PR: the previous release PR #1753 went red on the identical link (compare/8.3.0...8.3.1) on all four of its Docs CI runs and was merged over it; the link resolves the moment the tag is pushed after merge.

Every other link in the build checks out (the full log shows this as the sole broken entry). Deliberately not adding a linkcheck_ignore for compare URLs, since that would permanently exempt them from checking.

---

Generated by Claude Code

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 91.05%. Comparing base (4e10030) to head (36601ef).
⚠️ Report is 337 commits behind head on master.

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##           master    #1792      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage   86.87%   91.05%   +4.17%     
==========================================
  Files          56       77      +21     
  Lines        6532    11688    +5156     
==========================================
+ Hits         5675    10643    +4968     
- Misses        857     1045     +188     

Flag	Coverage Δ
pytests	91.05% <100.00%> (+4.17%)	⬆️

Flags with carried forward coverage won't be shown. Click here to find out more.

☔ View full report in Codecov by Harness.
📢 Have feedback on the report? Share it here.

🚀 New features to boost your workflow:

• ❄️ Test Analytics: Detect flaky tests, report on failures, and find test suite problems.
• 📦 JS Bundle Analysis: Save yourself from yourself by tracking and limiting bundle sizes in JS merges.