How does the dock work?

[Bisho-Lion]

Hello, I just had a question about the dock's functionality. You see I want it to display all the apps on my dock whether they are running or not. I wanted to see if this is possible from my end or not at all. Also, for some reason, certain apps like Microsoft edge and Spotify are on my touch bar regardless if they are running in the background or not. I tried restarting the app a couple of times that doesn't seem to do anything. Thanks.