Hi AsterixDB Community, My name is Nehan Pathan, and I’m a Computer Engineering student from India. I’m planning to apply for GSoC 2026 with a focus on the *NL2SQL++ Assistant project*. Over the past few weeks, I have been exploring AsterixDB by setting up the system locally, practicing SQL++ queries, and understanding the query execution pipeline. I also contributed a small fix and reported an issue related to the JDK version mismatch (*ASTERIXDB-3711 <https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ASTERIXDB-3711>*), which has been resolved. Additionally, I have been analyzing query processing and optimization behaviour. For example, while exploring SQL++ error handling (*ASTERIXDB-2740 <https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ASTERIXDB-2740>*), I traced how GROUP BY queries are rewritten and identified a gap in early validation. I also investigated index utilization for LIKE queries (*ASTERIXDB-2707 <https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ASTERIXDB-2707>*) using execution plans to understand how predicate rewriting enables B+ tree index usage. I was also a *GSoC 2025 contributor with Apache Lucene.NET* and currently serve as an *ASF committer*, which has given me experience working with Apache projects and contributing to production-quality systems. I’m currently working on my proposal and would greatly appreciate any guidance or feedback from the community. If anyone gets a chance to look at the discussions I’ve posted on recent issues, I would be happy to hear your thoughts on whether my understanding aligns with the intended design. Also, I wanted to ask if there is a preferred way or place to share proposal drafts for early feedback from mentors, as I want to ensure I’m moving in the right direction. Looking forward to contributing further and learning from everyone here. Thanks & regards, Nehan Pathan
