Situations to Avoid or not Avoid はい

Hi!

I've heard that an important part of natural Japanese is recognizing the different use of はい vs "yes" in English. From what I can tell, it isn't as required and can be omitted for more casual speech. However, my English-speaker brain still can't quickly come up with the affirming statement to answer someone's question (even if it's just repeating like 「好きですか」　「好きです」) and I often fill the space with はい before saying anything else.

While I'm still in the habit of doing this, are there any situations it would be especially bad? Are there any where it would actually be necessary to say はい to confirm something, with or without the repeated/affirming statement?