> Also I still haven’t figured out how to combine a mechanical and digital solution. Like I want light switches that match my server state for my lights. If I change the switch via my phone, I want the switches to change as well so that the physical switch is always the true state of the light.

For the lights that I want to "keep mechanically in sync" I replaced the switches with buttons and used a re-flashed (ESPhome) sonoff-mini which conveniently has a button input for the relay. Everything is synchronized no matter the operating interface.