Protocol Team Pickup Notes

This issue is meant to track various in progress things that we don't want to forget about after the holidays. We will use the things documented in this ticket to seed the next kickoff meeting in the new year.

The issue is a holiday-period tracking note for the Protocol Team and mentions no files, tests, or entry points. Read the recorded pickup items and use them to prepare for the next kickoff meeting; no concrete change or completion criteria are defined here.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.