diff --git a/.release-please-manifest.json b/.release-please-manifest.json
index 78e7f271..8032c17e 100644
--- a/.release-please-manifest.json
+++ b/.release-please-manifest.json
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
 {
-  ".": "0.11.0"
+  ".": "0.12.0"
 }
diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..7415339f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+# Changelog
+
+## [0.12.0](https://github.com/PolusAI/nyxus/compare/0.11.0...v0.12.0) (2026-06-05)
+
+
+### Features
+
+* add 2D test coverage for touch and morphology feature families ([3f576d9](https://github.com/PolusAI/nyxus/commit/3f576d9bd54f72094a3d12a04ea72119e5152593))
+* Benchmark area fix ([#345](https://github.com/PolusAI/nyxus/issues/345)) ([b532f21](https://github.com/PolusAI/nyxus/commit/b532f21dd636f1176254b003f0b4eca63de1b993))
+* re-organize and create complete implementation unit test coverage for 492 2D features ([#346](https://github.com/PolusAI/nyxus/issues/346)) ([011df60](https://github.com/PolusAI/nyxus/commit/011df6091c76e257b4159a324a63b0c7c0bf2d0b))
+
+
+### Bug Fixes
+
+* cleare state and start fresh to avoid random test failure.  ([495f05c](https://github.com/PolusAI/nyxus/commit/495f05c29101fe8fa3679784b2546c2de4f04e98))
+* issue 327 single roi polus ([#330](https://github.com/PolusAI/nyxus/issues/330)) ([03eeb0c](https://github.com/PolusAI/nyxus/commit/03eeb0c7d25633483c051a04ddcd43192c833315))
+* make imagecodecs PIP_ONLY_BINARY ([b5fa20a](https://github.com/PolusAI/nyxus/commit/b5fa20a80d0f66f7be40248f9dc33248ee94cd16))
+* migrate build_and_test from macos-15-intel to macos-14 ([ac70de1](https://github.com/PolusAI/nyxus/commit/ac70de14cbc74d29a77d5e4b7a7330a8ac89657d))
+* mitigate exposed bug due to incorrect reading of bx in 3d_surface ([24d18ee](https://github.com/PolusAI/nyxus/commit/24d18eeb15f334027b2ba671426397a7aba483ea))
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 9b82896f..e697aac7 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ def build_extension(self, ext):
         env = os.environ.copy()
         try:
             from setuptools_scm import get_version
-            version = get_version(fallback_version="0.0.0")
+            version = get_version(fallback_version="0.12.0")
         except Exception:
             version = "0.0.0"
         env["CXXFLAGS"] = '{} -DVERSION_INFO=\\"{}\\"'.format(