Swiss tournaments - Manual pairings in next round - unexpectedly gives 1/2 point bye to most players

I created a Swiss tournament for my team. 9 players joined the tournament.

2 of the 9 players were beginner level; everyone else was much more advanced.

I used the "Manual pairings in next round" feature to match up 2 of the beginner players against each other in round 1.

I wrongly assumed that lichess would automatically match up the remaining 7 players.

Instead, when the tournament started, the remaining 7 players all received a 1/2 point bye for round 1! The only round 1 game was between the 2 beginner players!

Lichess should automatically pair other players when the tournament has some (but not all) manual pairings in the next round. Lichess should not automatically give 1/2 point byes to other players.

This should either be the default behavior, or perhaps offer a setting (perhaps a line entry "* *") where I can indicate that other players should be paired automatically.

I mean, it does say

>Specify all pairings of the next round manually. One player pair per line. Example:
PlayerA PlayerB
PlayerC PlayerD
To give a bye (1 point) to a player instead of a pairing, add a line like so:
PlayerE 1
Missing players will be considered absent and get zero points.
Leave this field empty to let lichess create pairings automatically.

So the help text seems ok to me in terms of how it works. I am not sure a mix between manual and automatic is a good idea tbh.

@TBest In general yes, but the topic said "unexpectedly gives 1/2 point bye to most players" and your quote from the help says "Missing players will be considered absent and get zero points." This is kinda consistent, as absent players don't actually get 0 points. An absence in round 1 will get you 1/2 point for being late.