docs: add release notes for version 4.4.0 with async Kafka adapters and BDD testing updates

Author: HosseinNejatiJavaremi

docs/community/changelog/4/4.3.6.md

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ description: "Release notes for ArchiPy 4.3.6"
 
 # 4.3.6 — 2026-03-13
 
-[← 4.3.5](4.3.5.md) | [↑ 4.x series](index.md)
+[← 4.4.0](4.4.0.md) | [4.3.5 →](4.3.5.md) | [↑ 4.x series](index.md)
 
 ## Added
 

docs/community/changelog/4/4.4.0.md

@@ -0,0 +1,75 @@
+---
+title: "Changelog 4.4.0"
+description: "Release notes for ArchiPy 4.4.0"
+---
+
+# 4.4.0 — 2026-03-13
+
+[← 4.3.6](4.3.6.md) | [↑ 4.x series](index.md)
+
+## Added
+
+### Adapters - Kafka
+
+- **Async Kafka Producer Adapter** - Introduced `AsyncKafkaProducerAdapter` for non-blocking message production using
+  `confluent-kafka`'s thread-based async delivery model.
+    - Implements the new `AsyncKafkaProducerPort` interface with `async produce`, `async flush`, and `async close`
+      methods
+    - Lazy-initialises the underlying `confluent-kafka` `Producer` on first use to avoid blocking the event loop at
+      construction time
+    - Supports configurable worker threads (`kafka_async_worker_threads`) and buffer flush timeout
+      (`kafka_async_buffer_timeout_seconds`) via `KafkaConfig`
+- **Async Kafka Consumer Adapter** - Introduced `AsyncKafkaConsumerAdapter` for non-blocking message consumption.
+    - Implements the new `AsyncKafkaConsumerPort` interface with `async consume`, `async subscribe`, `async commit`,
+      and `async close` methods
+    - Offloads blocking `confluent-kafka` `Consumer` calls to a thread pool executor to keep the event loop free
+- **Async Kafka Ports** - Added `AsyncKafkaProducerPort` and `AsyncKafkaConsumerPort` abstract base classes to
+  `archipy/adapters/kafka/ports.py`.
+    - Defines the async contract that all async Kafka adapter implementations must satisfy
+- **Close Methods on Sync Adapters** - Added explicit `close()` methods to `KafkaConsumerAdapter` and
+  `KafkaProducerAdapter` for deterministic resource cleanup.
+
+### Configs - Kafka
+
+- **Async Kafka Config Fields** - Extended `KafkaConfig` with two new settings for the async adapters.
+    - `kafka_async_worker_threads: int` — number of threads in the async executor pool (default `4`)
+    - `kafka_async_buffer_timeout_seconds: float` — maximum seconds to wait when flushing the producer buffer on close
+      (default `5.0`)
+
+### Tests - Kafka
+
+- **Async BDD Scenarios** - Expanded `features/kafka_adapters.feature` with end-to-end scenarios for
+  `AsyncKafkaProducerAdapter` and `AsyncKafkaConsumerAdapter`.
+    - Covers produce, consume, subscribe, commit, flush, and close lifecycle
+    - Step implementations in `features/steps/kafka_adapter_steps.py` use `await` throughout instead of
+      `asyncio.run()`
+
+## Changed
+
+### Tests - BDD
+
+- **Async Step Implementations** - Refactored all async Behave step functions across multiple feature files to use
+  `await` instead of `asyncio.run()`.
+    - Affected files: `atomic_transaction_steps.py`, `error_utils_steps.py`, `grpc_error_handling_steps.py`,
+      `metric_interceptor_steps.py`
+    - Eliminates nested event-loop errors when steps run inside an already-running loop
+- **`test_helpers.py` Cleanup** - Removed deprecated utility functions from `features/test_helpers.py` that were
+  superseded by the async step refactor.
+
+## Chore
+
+### Docs - Kafka
+
+- **Kafka Tutorial Expansion** - Substantially expanded `docs/tutorials/adapters/kafka.md` to document all five
+  adapter classes (`KafkaAdminAdapter`, `KafkaConsumerAdapter`, `KafkaProducerAdapter`,
+  `AsyncKafkaConsumerAdapter`, `AsyncKafkaProducerAdapter`).
+    - Added dedicated sections for async adapters, lazy initialisation behaviour, and usage in non-async contexts
+    - Improved logging examples for consistency with documentation standards
+- **Kafka API Reference Update** - Updated `docs/api_reference/adapters/kafka.md` to list all five adapter classes
+  and their async configuration options.
+- **Documentation Admonition Style** - Migrated all admonitions across 19 documentation files from MkDocs `!!!`
+  directives to block-quote callouts (`> **Type:** ...`) to prevent formatting issues in PyCharm.
+- **Quickstart Redis Update** - Updated `docs/getting-started/quickstart.md` to reflect the current Redis caching
+  implementation.
+- **BDD Testing Rule Update** - Clarified Behave version (1.3.3) and async step conventions in
+  `.cursor/rules/testing-bdd.mdc`.

docs/community/changelog/4/index.md

@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ description: "Release history for ArchiPy 4.x series"
 
 | Version           | Date       | Summary                                                                                         |
 |-------------------|------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
+| [4.4.0](4.4.0.md) | 2026-03-13 | Async Kafka producer and consumer adapters, async BDD step refactor                             |
 | [4.3.6](4.3.6.md) | 2026-03-13 | SQLAlchemy filter type expansion, docs overhaul, CI pipeline fixes                              |
 | [4.3.5](4.3.5.md) | 2026-03-10 | SSL Config Typing: Improved type safety and optional-field handling for SSL configuration in... |
 | [4.3.4](4.3.4.md) | 2026-02-24 | BaseError `__str__` Enhancement: Improved string representation to expose full error context    |

docs/community/changelog/index.md

@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ All notable changes to ArchiPy are documented here, organized by major version s
 
 ## [4.x Series](4/index.md)
 
-13 releases — from 4.0.0 to 4.3.6
+14 releases — from 4.0.0 to 4.4.0
 
 ## [3.x Series](3/index.md)