adding release, switching to pnpm

[dben]

This pull request introduces several improvements to the release automation workflow, most notably adding support for automatic GitHub release creation, updating the Node.js ecosystem tooling, and enhancing documentation and test coverage. The changes also include updates to dependency management and workflow configuration.

Release automation enhancements:

• Added support for creating GitHub releases when tagging a new version, including new create_release and release_name options in the workflow, action.yml, and documentation. The main.js script now creates a release if create_release is enabled, and the createRelease function is exported and tested. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

Workflow and ecosystem updates:

• Switched CI workflow from npm to pnpm, updated Node.js version requirements, set up pnpm in CI, and updated the actions/checkout version. Added permissions for contents and pull-requests. [1] [2] [3]
• Updated workflow to use create_release and conditional detect_bump logic for release creation.

Dependency and configuration management:

• Added a pnpm-lock.yaml lockfile for deterministic dependency management.
• Added and updated metadata in package.json, including author, package manager, and Node.js engine requirements. [1] [2]

Automated dependency updates:

• Added a .github/dependabot.yml configuration to automate dependency updates for npm and GitHub Actions, focusing on security updates.