Baking is weird. You first should start by following instructions to the letter. Then once you get it you'll be able to break all the rules.

The bread rises because of the yeast bacteria eats sugar and expels carbon dioxide. So ask yourself, what does yeast like? Probably not hard to guess that it's a warm, moist environment with plenty of sugar. Too cold and they're slow moving. Too hot and they burn up. But the goldilocks zone is that of most bacteria, a hot summer day in the tropics.

How long to rise? That's more a question of how fluffy you want the bread and how fast the bacteria eats the sugar.

Follow instructions while you're learning but think about things like this while practicing and you'll get your answers pretty quickly. The problem is no one can actually give you a direct answer because there's variance. Besides, the more important skill is to learn to generalize and get the intuition for it. So pay attention to how sticky the dough is, how fluffy, how it stretches, and all the other little things. Think about it during and after. If you do this I promise you'll get your answer very quickly

Depends on the method/recipe. Most of the recipes I follow have at least two rising steps, following by another one after the dough is shaped into its final loaf (or whatever shape you want). Each one would be about an hour and half or so. It could be done with a single rise as well, but two rises tends to give more flavor. If you don't want it right away, a slow overnight rise in the fridge is also pretty good.

"No-knead" recipes usually involve 20-30 minute cadence of "fold-and-stretch" followed by a rise to allow the gluten to develop naturally without kneading. Usually about four times.

How long to leave in depends on the dough, but you can get a quick rise in like less than an hour in the right temperature. Definitely don't leave it too long. I routinely forget and then it rises too much and eventually collapses when you go to bake it.

I use like 65% or maybe 70% hydration for bread, little more for whole wheat. Like 25:1 sugar (or less?), 100:1 salt, 100:1 yeast. High protein flour if you can.

For just basic bread, no sourdough, not a sandwich loaf, etc.

Yep, some ovens (like mine) even have a Proof setting that keeps it at 100 degrees F automatically, for as long as you want. We make a lot of bread is how I know this