I have the NUC/ROCK setup with a UPS battery backup system so it never really loses power. Before the backup I did not use auto restart preferring to wait until the power was stable again. It’s a single press power up and initializes quickly.
Taking these ideas, I changed my mac mini energy saver settings to boot up at power on, security preferences for no username or password required at startup, and Roon is set up for automatic login.
Appears to now go straight to roon at powerup, thanks for the ideas!! Like adding a ups too.