[jung-thomas]

Summary

Release prep for 1.44.0 (follows the #3043 → #3044 pattern: this lands on DEV first, then a separate DEV→main promotion PR ships it to PROD).

• Bump .deploy/mta.yaml version 1.43.0 → 1.44.0 (the deploy source of truth per deploy-mta.cjs).
• Refresh hugo/data/whats_new.json — 41 merged PRs since 1.43.0, summarized in community voice via the whats-new skill.

What 1.44.0 ships to PROD

• Interactive tutorial rich media on every page — asciinema terminal-recording player, before/after compare slider, click-to-highlight code walkthroughs (fix(tutorials): load rich-media + walkthrough JS unconditionally in u1-object-page #3085, superseding fix(demo): wire hasWalkthrough frontmatter + add cast/compare JS+CSS to single.html #3081). Verified end-to-end on DEV: bundles serve 200, demo HTML references them.
• Code line-highlighting in samples (feat(code): highlight specific lines in code samples (#3076) #3084).
• Dead cross-ref slugs fail the build loudly (fix(rebuild): fail loud on dead :tutorial/::requires cross-ref slugs #3082).
• Repo content snippets expand in CI (fix(rebuild): enable repo snippets in CI + fail loudly on directive compose errors #3078).
• Filterable DevAdvocates OData collection (feat(advocates): add filterable OData collection /api/DevAdvocates #3077).
• Directive-rendering fixes (menu breadcrumbs, callouts, walkthroughs, includes) that stop raw markup leaking onto published pages.

Notes

• Only 2 files change here (version + whats-new JSON); no build-output artifacts.
• The DEV→main promotion PR (the one that actually reaches PROD) will be opened once this merges to DEV.

Test plan

• whats-new merge idempotent, 41 entries added (total 1037)
• version line confirmed 1.44.0
• merge to DEV, then open DEV→main promotion PR