I had a ticking on my 2012 at cold startup for a few months and thought it was one of the rocker trunnions I'd installed when I did my DoD delete back in 2021 because it sounded metallic. I have 20K on that setup now, so I was dreading the prospect of tearing into it again. So while we were camping last week, I popped the hood for a good look around. Lo and behold, the rearmost exhaust manifold bolt was backing out on the driver's side (I'd installed ARP manifold bolts, which are the best, and torqued them to spec), and I'd developed an exhaust leak on #7 that was the source of the cold tick. Re-torqued the bolt and the tick is gone.
Moral of the story: check to make sure all of your exhaust manifold bolts are still there. It's common for the OEM bolts to break off after several years, and when you have an exhaust leak, you'd swear it was in the valve train because the sound is almost indistinguishable.