[michalharakal]

Summary

Release 0.61.0 against engine 0.60.0, the same sequence as 0.60.0 (#495):

• docs(changelog): 0.61.0 entry — the Unreleased block from feat(encoders): padded batches with key lengths for BERT and Laya on engine 0.60.0 (#490) #496 becomes [0.61.0] — 2026-10-16 with a headline and a Deprecated note.
• docs(readme): 0.61.0 highlights and BOM coordinate
• docs: bump version references to 0.61.0 — BOM coordinates on seven pages, the Maven <version> in the Java tutorial, and the schedule paragraph in the tokenizer reference.
• release: prepare 0.61.0 -- against engine 0.60.0 — gradle.properties.

Contents since 0.60.0: #496 (engine 0.60.0; padded batches with key lengths for the BERT and Laya encoders, #490).

Deprecation note: 0.60.0 scheduled the SKEEP-006 legacy tokenizer surface for ERROR in 0.61. It stays at WARNING here and the schedule moves one more minor (ERROR in 0.62, removed in 0.63; TokenizerFactory and the sub-interface deprecated in 0.62, removed in 0.63). The runtimes, CLIs and benchmarks still go through the factory and this release carries the engine bump and the batched encoders; that migration is still a release of its own. The engine's own io-core aliases are errors since 0.60.0 and the two tests that used one were moved in #496. The changelog, README and tokenizer reference say so.

Test plan

• feat(encoders): padded batches with key lengths for BERT and Laya on engine 0.60.0 (#490) #496 built and tested against engine 0.60.0 from Maven Central (all four module suites, gated Laya fixtures, apiCheck), CI green
• CI on this PR
• publish dry run (workflow_dispatch on release/0.61.0) green before tagging
• after merge: annotated tag 0.61.0, tag-triggered publish, main fast-forwarded, Central resolves sk.ainet.transformers:skainet-transformers-bom:0.61.0