Forward-merge release/1.6 into develop (#1860)

Forward-merge triggered by push to release/1.6 that creates a PR to keep
develop up-to-date. If this PR is unable to be immediately merged due to
conflicts, it will remain open for the team to manually merge. See
[forward-merger
docs](https://docs.rapids.ai/maintainers/forward-merger/) for more info.

Author: GPUtester

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -18,6 +18,88 @@ limitations under the License.
 # Changelog
 All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
 
+## [1.6.0] - 2026-04-09
+### 🚀 Notable Features and Improvements
+* Adds ATIF-based evaluation, including a standalone evaluator class that can evaluate ATIF trajectories generated by any system
+
+## What's Changed
+### 🚨 Breaking Changes
+* NAT Eval Dependency Reduction by @AnuradhaKaruppiah in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1690
+* Migrate nvidia_nat_ragas to Ragas v0.4 by @AnuradhaKaruppiah in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1780
+* Add support for optionally disabling SSL/TLS verification by @dagardner-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1640
+* Add centralized user identity management and custom WebSocket authentication by @ericevans-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1775
+* Feat/optimizer package extraction by @bhuvan002 in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1637
+* Decouple ATIF schemas from core and make nvidia-nat-eval lightweight by default by @AnuradhaKaruppiah in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1833
+### ✨ New Features
+* Add TimeoutMiddleware by @ericevans-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1677
+* feat(agent): stream tool call chunks by @MylesShannon in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1717
+* Add ATIF adapter: `IntermediateStep` to Harbor ATIF v1.6 trajectory conversion by @yczhang-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1663
+* feat(control_flow): add built-in parallel_executor with example by @antoniomtz in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1733
+* Restore TimeoutMiddleware reverted by #1710 by @ericevans-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1753
+* Add ATIF-native evaluator interface and runtime dual-lane dispatch by @AnuradhaKaruppiah in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1747
+* Add LLM error recovery, retry logic, and diagnostic logging to Tool Calling Agent by @ericevans-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1757
+* Add ATIF-only custom evaluator example and docs by @AnuradhaKaruppiah in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1766
+* feat(profiler): ATIF-native profiler by @afourniernv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1751
+* Add pre-tool verifier defense middleware for input instruction violation detection by @lidan-capsule in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1605
+* Add MemMachine memory integration for NeMo Agent toolkit by @Charlie-Yi-2002 in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1460
+* Nested ATIF lineage by @AnuradhaKaruppiah in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1814
+### 🔧 Improvements
+* Forward-merge release/1.5 into develop by @willkill07 in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1676
+* Add user attribution to Weave traces and feedback by @thepatrickchin in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1668
+* Move eval callbacks to nvidia_nat_eval and guard core shim path by @AnuradhaKaruppiah in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1748
+* Refactor eval file output into FileEvalCallback for Python API support by @yczhang-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1743
+* Add AtifBaseEvaluator for reusable concurrent ATIF custom evaluators by @AnuradhaKaruppiah in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1769
+* Use nvidia-nat-eval from PyPI in the custom evaluator notebook by @AnuradhaKaruppiah in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1778
+* chore(pre-commit): any `pyproject.toml` changes should trigger `uv lock` checks by @willkill07 in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1790
+* Remove unneeded warning filter by @dagardner-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1789
+* Remove old/unused compatibility code by @dagardner-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1794
+* fix: handle Anthropic-style tool schemas in LangchainProfilerHandler by @cluster2600 in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1770
+* Add ATIF-native evaluators for nvidia-nat-profiler runtime metrics by @afourniernv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1791
+* Update old CI variable names by @dagardner-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1813
+* Explicitly set `framework_wrappers` for LangChain tools by @dagardner-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1820
+* Report installed packages when testing built wheels by @dagardner-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1821
+* chore: pin LiteLLM to known good version by @willkill07 in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1823
+* Ensure file paths are properly quoted in `gitutils.py` by @dagardner-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1832
+* Update `LICENSE-3rd-party.txt` by @dagardner-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1840
+* Informational ATIF mapping docs and sample output colocation (no functional changes) by @AnuradhaKaruppiah in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1844
+* fix: guard nim_langchain against ChatNVIDIA model lookup crash by @bbednarski9 in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1843
+* Document that MemMachine integration is Experimental by @AnuradhaKaruppiah in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1854
+* Restore profiler intermediate-step compatibility by rolling back selected ATIF-native changes by @AnuradhaKaruppiah in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1853
+### 🐛 Bug Fixes
+* Fix Simple Calculator MCP example to return consistent timezone results by @dagardner-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1708
+* fix: preserve nested Pydantic models when unpacking multi-arg functions by @MylesShannon in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1696
+* Fix `_running_workflow_task` always being `None` due to method chaining by @AjayThorve in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1744
+* Fix LoRA inference routing in OpenPipe ART cookbook by @aslanshi in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1662
+* Add profiler callback to sequential executor for LLM observability by @thepatrickchin in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1786
+* Enhance chat completion functionality to support OpenAI-style message history by @mdemoret-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1674
+* fix(crewai): CrewAI Profiler Handler logic `>=1.1.0` by @willkill07 in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1803
+* fix: add missing dependencies and repair logic for some tests by @willkill07 in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1815
+* Fix urls in pypi markdown files by @dagardner-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1828
+* Fix default values for datetime fields in `JobInfo` objects by @dagardner-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1829
+* add targeted MCP OAuth2 diagnostics for redirect URI mismatches by @AnuradhaKaruppiah in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1830
+* Ensure proper cancellation of in-flight workflow tasks by @thepatrickchin in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1819
+* Ensure HTTP request attributes are propagated into eval and async requests  by @dagardner-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1838
+* Update weave version to pickup fixes for tracing LangChain workflows by @dagardner-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1841
+* fix(middleware): improve pre-tool middleware guarding logic by @cparadis-nvidia in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1824
+### 📝 Documentation Updates
+* Add notebooks demonstrating standalone ATIF evaluation via Python API by @yczhang-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1752
+* Add notebook demonstrating end-to-end interoperability between third-party agent frameworks and the NeMo Agent toolkit evaluation harness by @yczhang-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1799
+* docs: add LangSmith to list of supported observability platforms by @abhisawa-Nvidia in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1825
+* Fix license header in memmachine's README.md by @Charlie-Yi-2002 in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1831
+* add memmachine into docs/ by @Charlie-Yi-2002 in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1839
+* Document Otel endpoints for custom LangSmith deployments by @dagardner-nv in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1845
+
+## New Contributors
+* @AjayThorve made their first contribution in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1744
+* @cluster2600 made their first contribution in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1770
+* @afourniernv made their first contribution in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1791
+* @bhuvan002 made their first contribution in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1637
+* @lidan-capsule made their first contribution in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1605
+* @abhisawa-Nvidia made their first contribution in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1825
+* @Charlie-Yi-2002 made their first contribution in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1460
+* @cparadis-nvidia made their first contribution in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/pull/1824
+
+
 ## [1.5.0] - 2026-03-11
 
 ### 🚀 Notable Features and Improvements

docs/source/release-notes.md

@@ -18,18 +18,13 @@ limitations under the License.
 # NVIDIA NeMo Agent Toolkit Release Notes
 This section contains the release notes for [NeMo Agent Toolkit](./index.md).
 
-## Release 1.5.0
+## Release 1.6.0
 ### Summary
-This release expands runtime intelligence, framework-level performance acceleration, and production observability in the toolkit, while making workflow publishing to MCP ecosystems easier.
+This release introduces ATIF-based evaluation support and streamlines trajectory evaluation workflows in the toolkit.
 
-**Migration notice:** Release `1.5.0` includes packaging and compatibility refactors (including meta-package changes, eval package split, and import-path updates). Review the [Migration Guide](./resources/migration-guide.md#v150) before upgrading.
+- Adds a standalone evaluator class for evaluating ATIF trajectories generated by any system.
 
-- [**Dynamo Runtime Intelligence:**](https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/blob/release/1.5/examples/dynamo_integration/latency_sensitivity_demo/README.md) Automatically infer per-request latency sensitivity from agent profiles and apply runtime hints for cache control, load-aware routing, and priority-aware serving.
-- [**Agent Performance Primitives (APP):**](https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/blob/release/1.5/packages/nvidia_nat_app/src/meta/pypi.md) Introduce framework-agnostic performance primitives that accelerate graph-based agent frameworks such as LangChain, CrewAI, and Agno with parallel execution, speculative branching, and node-level priority routing.
-- [**LangSmith Native Integration:**](https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/blob/release/1.5/docs/source/run-workflows/observe/observe-workflow-with-langsmith.md) Observe end-to-end agent execution with native LangSmith tracing, run evaluation experiments, compare outcomes, and manage prompt versions across development and production workflows.
-- [**FastMCP Workflow Publishing:**](https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/blob/release/1.5/docs/source/run-workflows/fastmcp-server.md) Publish NeMo Agent Toolkit workflows as MCP servers using the FastMCP runtime to simplify MCP-native deployment and integration.
-
-Refer to the [changelog](https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/blob/release/1.5/CHANGELOG.md) for the complete list of changes.
+Refer to the [changelog](https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/blob/release/1.6/CHANGELOG.md) for the complete list of changes.
 
 ## Known Issues
 - Refer to [https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/issues](https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/issues) for an up to date list of current issues.