refactor: update metadata handling to use MetadataValue type alias

[LogicalGuy77]

What was wrong?

Issue #911 Some methods used generic [Any] type annotations where more specific types could be used, leading to reduced type safety and potential runtime errors. This affected metadata handling in [abc.py] (lines 391, 870, 2135) and [peerstore.py] (line 293), where [Any] was overly permissive for JSON-serializable metadata values.

How was it fixed?

Introduced [MetadataValue] Type Alias:

Added [MetadataValue = Union[str, int, float, bool, list, dict, None]] in [abc.py] to represent JSON-serializable types commonly used for peer metadata.

Updated Method Signatures:

Replaced [Any] with [MetadataValue] in key interfaces and implementations:

• IPeerMetadata.put() and [get()] in [abc.py]
• [IPeerStore.put()] and [get()] in [abc.py] and [peerstore.py]
• IPeerData.put_metadata() and [get_metadata()] in [abc.py]

Fixed Incorrect Return Type:

Corrected IPeerData.get_metadata() to return [MetadataValue] instead of the erroneous IPeerMetadata.

Ensured Consistency:

Updated all related implementations in [peerstore.py] and [peerdata.py] to use the new type, maintaining backward compatibility while improving type safety.

To-Do

• Clean up commit history
• Add or update documentation related to these changes
• Add entry to the release notes

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