docs: Add GSoC '26 Community Bonding Blog by Sonal Gaud

src/constants/MarkdownFiles/authors/sonal-gaud.md

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+---
+name: "Sonal Gaud"
+slug: "sonal-gaud"
+title: "GSoC'26 Contributor"
+organization: "SugarLabs"
+description: "GSoC'26 Contributor at SugarLabs"
+avatar: "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/82362774?v=4"
+---
+<!--markdownlint-disable-->
+# About Sonal Gaud
+I'm a software engineer based in Mumbai, India, with a strong interest in open-source development, CI/CD automation, and release engineering. 
+
+I've contributed to open-source projects including Music Blocks under Sugar Labs, OpenTelemetry, and ODK-X, where I set up a containerized CI pipeline with Playwright-based E2E testing. I'm currently building an automated release pipeline for Music Blocks as part of Google Summer of Code 2026.
+
+## Experience
+- **GSoC '26 Contributor:** Building an Automated Release Pipeline for Music Blocks at Sugar Labs
+- **Open Source Developer:** Active contributor to Sugar Labs ecosystem
+- **OpenTelemetry Contributor:** Codeowner of `otelhttp` package, I do API improvements, cleanup, and maintainer collaboration
+- **Outreachy'25 (ODK-X)** Set up structured CI pipeline with containerized Playwright E2E testing for ODK-X Application Designer
+
+## Current Projects
+* **Automated Release Pipeline for Music Blocks (GSoC '26)** - Designing and building a complete CI/CD and release automation system for Sugar Labs' Music Blocks, covering multi-environment deployments, semantic versioning, Docker image optimization, rollback workflows, and post-deployment health checks.
+
+## Connect with Me
+- **GitHub**: [@sonalgaud12](https://github.com/sonalgaud12)
+- **LinkedIn**: [Sonal Gaud](https://linkedin.com/in/sonal-gaud)
+- **Email**: [sonalgaud12@gmail.com](mailto:sonalgaud12@gmail.com)
+- **Sugar Matrix**: [@sonalgaud:matrix.org](https://matrix.to/#/@sonalgaud:matrix.org)

src/constants/MarkdownFiles/posts/src/constants/MarkdownFiles/posts/2026-05-24-gsoc-26-sonal-gaud-community-bonding.md

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+---
+title: "GSoC '26 Community Bonding Blog by Sonal Gaud"
+excerpt: "Introducing my GSoC '26 project on Automated Release Pipeline for Music Blocks"
+category: "DEVELOPER NEWS"
+date: "2026-05-24"
+slug: "2026-05-24-gsoc-26-sonal-gaud-week1"
+author: "@/constants/MarkdownFiles/authors/sonal-gaud.md"
+tags: "gsoc26,sugarlabs,musicblocks,ci-cd,release-automation,infrastructure"
+image: "assets/Images/GSOC.webp"
+---
+
+<!-- markdownlint-disable -->
+## Community Bonding Reflections for GSoC 2026
+
+**Project:** Automated Release Pipeline for Music Blocks
+**Mentors:** [Walter Bender](https://github.com/walterbender), [Om Santosh Suneri](https://github.com/omsuneri)
+**Organization:** [Sugar Labs](https://sugarlabs.org)
+**Reporting Period:** May 8, 2026 – May 24, 2026
+
+---
+
+## About Me
+
+Hello everyone! I'm Sonal Gaud, based in Mumbai, India. I'll be working on the **Automated Release Pipeline for Music Blocks** at Sugar Labs this summer as a Google Summer of Code 2026 contributor.
+
+I enjoy building automation and CI/CD systems, things that are stable, predictable, and easy for others to work with. My open source journey includes contributing to OpenTelemetry, setting up a containerized CI pipeline with Playwright-based E2E testing for ODK-X Application Designer, and contributing to Music Blocks itself fixing build and test issues, integrating Husky pre-commit hooks with lint-staged, tightening ESLint and Prettier enforcement, and improving CI workflow reliability.
+
+
+---
+
+## Project Overview
+
+Music Blocks has nine GitHub Actions workflows handling lint, tests, security, and performance, a solid CI foundation. But the moment code merges, everything goes manual. Releases to `sugarlabs.github.io/musicblocks` happen through undocumented manual pushes with no staging, no rollback, no changelog, and no smoke tests. 
+
+This project builds a complete CI/CD and release automation system on top of what already exists: multi-environment deployments spanning ephemeral PR previews, auto-promoted staging, and approval-gated production; semantic versioning and automated changelog generation; a corrected and optimized Docker image; and proper rollback workflows with post-deployment health checks.
+
+
+
+---
+
+## Community Bonding Activities
+
+The community bonding period focused on connecting with the Music Blocks community, discussing project direction and expectations with mentors, collaborating with contributors, and helping newcomers get familiar with the codebase and contribution workflow.
+
+
+---
+
+## Week 1 Plan: Audit Before Automation
+
+
+No workflow gets touched until the current state is formally documented every design decision must be grounded in verified facts, not assumptions.
+This week I'll be creating Docs/RELEASE_AUDIT_CURRENT_STATE.md covering all nine workflows, the Dockerfile, Gulp pipeline, Express server, service worker, and translation pipeline. Alongside that: mapping the full deployment flow, building a dependency graph to spot duplicate npm ci runs and caching gaps.
+
+---
+
+
+
+## Acknowledgements
+
+Thanks to my mentors Walter Bender and Om Santosh Suneri for their guidance and support throughout the community bonding period, and to the broader Sugar Labs community for the warm welcome and engaging discussions.
+
+---