Near the end of the initial story and need some advice

If you've clicked into this, presumably you know how it ends already or don't mind a spoiler. If not, don't click it 🤷🏻‍♂️

Ok, I've tried to understand from reading various posts and various pages but no one is particularly clear - or assumes knowledge I don't yet have. This is my first play through and I don't want to have to do a new save because I mess it up (I may, I just don't want to HAVE to).

I'm at the final step of Atlas Path. I'm also at the Purge step (I think I have may 6 of the glyphs). Both talk about the "final Atlas Interface" which is somewhat unhelpful

Here's the questions:

- assuming I finish Atlas first as I've seen generally recommended (and maybe use a different ship and clear my inventory first?), what is the best choice for continued play through?

- do I need to have all the glyphs first?

- is there anything else I should do first?

The lack of being able to manually save and then learn from getting it wrong is a real pain 😂