Route html button to home page, correct method

My question is what is the CORRECT way to take standard HTML syntaxed button and make the redirect to home page work. I am new to codeigniter and i am flummoxed honestly by the sheer depth of codeigniter 4 routes vs standard html routing. My routes are all verb based with the usage of namespace for Front/Back folders. I keep getting 404 not found or other errors when typing something into the href field. I did follow instructs for remove index.php. I want to do this securely but it is unclear what is the right vanilla method.  I need to see a basic html website, its buttons converted  into verb-based routes with effective returns back through the heirarchy. I would also like it to be low maintenance where one change wont result in having to update 48 routes that are difficult to understand later on. 
The button link i want converted to codeigntier 4 route syntax:
  <a href="../../index.html" class="btn btn-lg btn-secondary"> Home </a> 
The top of my default controller OPages is as follows:
namespace App\Controllers\Front;
use App\Controllers\BaseController;

class OPages extends BaseController
{
public function index()
{  // home svcs index page
return view('pages/home');
}

Top of my routes page is as follows:

$routes->setDefaultNamespace('App\Controllers');
$routes->setDefaultController('OPages');
$routes->setDefaultMethod('index');
$routes->setTranslateURIDashes(false);
$routes->set404Override();
$routes->setAutoRoute(false);
$routes->get('/', 'Front\OPages::index');

// all core services outer pages
$routes->get('home',                   'Front\OPages::index');
$routes->get('category1',            'Front\OPages::category1');
$routes->get('category2',            'Front\OPages::category1');

basically when i am in category 1,2 or 3 i need a return button to the home page that works

My app page configuration is as follows:

public $baseURL = 'http://example.com/';
public $indexPage = '';
public $uriProtocol = 'REQUEST_URI';

My htaccessfile currently in use is as follows:
I did migrate project from Xampp to Laragon so possibly something needs to change in here.....

# Disable directory browsing
Options All -Indexes

# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# Rewrite engine
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------

# Turning on the rewrite engine is necessary for the following rules and features.
# FollowSymLinks must be enabled for this to work.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On

# If you installed CodeIgniter in a subfolder, you will need to
# change the following line to match the subfolder you need.
# http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod...ewritebase
# RewriteBase /

# Redirect Trailing Slashes...
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ /$1 [L,R=301]

# Rewrite "www.example.com -> example.com"
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^ http://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

# Checks to see if the user is attempting to access a valid file,
    # such as an image or css document, if this isn't true it sends the
    # request to the front controller, index.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([\s\S]*)$ index.php/$1 [L,NC,QSA]

# Ensure Authorization header is passed along
    RewriteCond %{HTTP:Authorization} .
    RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
</IfModule>

<IfModule !mod_rewrite.c>
    # If we don't have mod_rewrite installed, all 404's
    # can be sent to index.php, and everything works as normal.
    ErrorDocument 404 index.php
</IfModule>

# Disable server signature start
    ServerSignature Off
# Disable server signature end