Presumably, they are excluded from consideration because manual tests[0] are, by definition, un-automated, and so are a bottleneck. Every manual test added to t

Presumably, they are excluded from consideration because manual tests[0] are, by definition, un-automated, and so are a bottleneck. Every manual test added to the "test suite" adds seconds (or, more likely, minutes) to execute, whereas the majority[1] of automated tests should run in milliseconds. The "confidence generated per time spent execution" of a manual test is far lower. [0] which are discussed later - "Now, to be fair, most engineers are not skipping testing altogether. They’re probably doing some manual checks with Postman, watching logs, or visually confirming debug output. The resistance isn’t to testing itself, it’s to codifying and automating those tests." [1] Yes, there are exceptions. That's why I said "the majority".