  Progressive astronomical characterization of planet-forming disks and rocky
exoplanets highlight the need for increasing interdisciplinary efforts to
understand the birth and life cycle of terrestrial worlds in a unified picture.
Here, we review major geophysical and geochemical processes that shape the
evolution of rocky planets and their precursor planetesimals during planetary
formation and early evolution, and how these map onto the astrophysical
timeline and varying accretion environments of planetary growth. The evolution
of the coupled core-mantle-atmosphere system of growing protoplanets diverges
in thermal, compositional, and structural states to first order, and ultimately
shapes key planetary characteristics that can discern planets harboring clement
surface conditions from those that do not. Astronomical campaigns seeking to
investigate rocky exoplanets will require significant advances in laboratory
characterization of planetary materials and time- and spatially-resolved
theoretical models of planetary evolution, to extend planetary science beyond
the Solar System and constrain the origins and frequency of habitable worlds
like our own.
