Merge branch...

Merge branch 'amiranda/58-compiling-in-release-disables-asserts-making-variables-unused-werror' into 'main'

Resolve "Compiling in Release disables asserts, making variables unused (Werror)"

This MR fixes several build errors that only appeared on Release builds.

It also adds a new `build_release` job to the CI pipelines to exercise
a build in Release mode.

Closes #58

See merge request !63