Release date: November 4, 2025	

## Improvements

- Chef Infra Client now has optimized property access with reduced instance variable name lookups for better performance. Thanks [@dafyddcrosby](https://github.com/dafyddcrosby)! [#15329](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15329)
- We've enhanced recipe loading capabilities by adding support for the `include_recipes` key in recipe hash processing. Thanks [@dafyddcrosby](https://github.com/dafyddcrosby)! [#15315](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15315)
- We upgraded chef-powershell to 18.6.5 and mixlib-archive to 1.3.3 to improve Windows PowerShell integration. This fixes the Windows-specific issue in version 18.8.46. ([#15410](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15410))

## Resource updates

- We enhanced resource stability by addressing edge cases that could cause failures when resources encounter unexpected data types. Thanks [@fretb](https://github.com/fretb)! [#15373](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15373)

## Packaging

- We upgraded to chef-powershell 18.6.5 and mixlib-archive 1.3.3 for improved Windows PowerShell integration and better archive handling. [#15410](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15410)
- We've updated Ohai to the latest version for enhanced system detection capabilities and improved hardware reporting. [#15407](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15407)