v4.4.0 — drop .gitlab-ci.yml from build_change_paths + optional needs on promote Removes .gitlab-ci.yml from default build_change_paths in base-build-scratch.yml and instance.yml so non-image-affecting pushes to main no longer trigger the bootc cascade. Bundled fix for the sibling empty-pipeline failure: promote jobs now have optional: true on their needs of the build job, plus a runtime guard that exits 0 silently when the SHA-tagged image doesn't exist. See CHANGELOG.md for details.