ci: declare branch protection as rulesets and audit effective drift (#298) - #344

Node.js 20 is deprecated. The following actions target Node.js 20 but are being forced to run on Node.js 24: actions/checkout@34e114876b0b11c390a56381ad16ebd13914f8d5. For more information see: https://github.blog/changelog/2025-09-19-deprecation-of-node-20-on-github-actions-runners/