How can I bypass required fields when saving a node as unpublished?
There's the Require on Publish module. You'll have a checkbox for all fields beneath the default &quot;Required&quot; checkbox that says &quot;Require on publish&quot;. So you need to have the default &quot;Required&quot; checkbox unchecked and just check &quot;Require on publish&quot;. Quite clever actually.

This module allows fields to be required only when the piece of
content is being published or is already published. This can be used
when you have fields such as tags or SEO information on your piece of
content that editors really don't need to fill in until the content is
going live.
Usage
When managing a field for a content type, click the new 'Required on
Publish' checkbox instead of the 'Required field' checkbox.