Use Focus to auto reply to text

Hello

As I understand it, Focus can only automatically reply to a text on the driving mode only. So I allow only one of my contacts to receive a reply from me. I set the driving mode to manual when I am at the gym or whenever I am away from my phone. This morning, I finally got a text from this contact, but Focus did not reply back to the text. What did I do wrong?

The reply text is “Yes”.

I disabled the “share focus across all device” because I was told that it might whitelist my contact