Is there something i am supposed to be looking at here? Seems like a pretty minor bugfix release.
It is. PHP 8.1 enters security support phase in about a month, so it's likely the final release of active support era.
I run a multi-version PHP + Nginx server for a CMS project I'm involved with, which involves obtaining & compiling from source on a regular basis. This is just another scheduled (every 4 weeks) patch release.
I assume the security changes will use the branch you linked above, so there will likely be more activity until EOL in late Nov 2024.