netlify email integration with mailgun (email trunk)

[interim17]

Problem

Closes #44, #61, #62, and #63

Reviewers: only Megan and I have access to the netlify back end right now, please feel free to just read and review without confirming the function is performing as advertised.

Solution

Signed us up for a mailgun account and configured the necessary environment variables to use netlify email integration:
https://docs.netlify.com/extend/install-and-use/setup-guides/email-integration/#required-environment-variables

Added an email template in /emails per above docs.

Added a /docs directory to start storing more case-specific advice for devs and LLMs that might previously have gone in README or CONTRIBUTING. We're using this pattern in aics-lims and I like it.

When testing this locally I was able to successfully send an email to my personal gmail through the contact form. CONTACT_IDEA_BOARD is still the only contactId -> email mapping that is provisioned on the backend.

If testing this be aware that our domain for mailgun is a sandbox that gets flagged as spam. We will need to work with infra and/or central IT to provision a domain or subdomain for this project.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Adds Netlify Email Integration (Mailgun) support so the site’s contact form can send templated emails via Netlify’s built-in emails function, and documents local/prod setup for developers.

Changes:

• Added @netlify/plugin-emails and configured Netlify to include the emails build plugin.
• Updated the contact Netlify Function to render/send an email via /.netlify/functions/emails/contact.
• Added an email template (emails/contact/index.html) plus developer docs and a sample .env for local setup.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 8 out of 10 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
yarn.lock	Locks new dependencies introduced by the Netlify emails plugin.
src/components/ContactModal.tsx	Includes ideaTitle in the contact request payload for better email context.
package.json	Adds @netlify/plugin-emails to support Netlify’s email integration.
netlify/functions/contact.mts	Implements email sending by calling the internal Netlify emails endpoint.
netlify.toml	Registers the Netlify emails build plugin.
gatsby/utils/gatsby-resolver-utils.js	Minor export formatting tweak.
emails/contact/index.html	Adds the Handlebars email template used by the emails integration.
docs/NETLIFY.md	Documents Netlify CLI/linking and required env vars for email integration.
docs/.env.example	Provides local env var template for Mailgun/Netlify emails integration.
.gitignore	Ignores local .env file.

---

💡 Add Copilot custom instructions for smarter, more guided reviews. Learn how to get started.