[farley13]

I do love the appeal to bread making. It's a wonderful example. If people haven't made french bread by hand, it's a humbling exercise.

Recipes of course have evolved too. Old roman recipes were merely a list of ingredients. Water, flour, salt, yeast.

Written steps came after, then photos, videos, gradually replacing hands on training / kneading.

There are now recipes as code running sour dough assembly lines. Certainly capturing much more detail in technique than even a well made video. But I bet there is still human QA at the end judging "is this bread what folks expect?"

I suspect that in order of complexity you'll get "can I attempt to follow each step", "can I follow the intention of each step and understand if I've failed to meet it" (mitigated by using more specific and detailed steps) "can I follow the intention of the recipe itself - can I add or modify steps that are missing to give the ideal form of sour dough" (maybe you show a machine what good bread looks like, moisture content, crunch?) Those mostly overlap with the 3 you've called out. But I'd add "why would anyone make bread?" Why the heck are we still mixing flour and water together. Why does this recipe exist? Great crusty sourdough requires them all.