Prepare 3.4.1 backport release

Author: sonus21

build.gradle

@@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ ext {
 
 subprojects {
     group = "com.github.sonus21"
-    version = "3.4.0-RELEASE"
+    version = "3.4.1-RELEASE"
 
     dependencies {
         // https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.springframework/spring-messaging

docs/CHANGELOG.md

@@ -8,6 +8,13 @@ layout: default
 
 All notable user-facing changes to this project are documented in this file.
 
+## Release [3.4.1] 15-March-2026
+### Features
+* Backported `HARD_STRICT` priority mode from #279 for stricter priority queue polling on the 3.x line
+
+### Fixes
+* Optimized hard-strict polling queue availability checks to avoid full list and sorted-set reads
+
 ## Release [3.4.0] 22-July-2025
 ### Fixes
 * Fixed unique enqueue message to reject the message upfront instead of identifying it later #259