I'm thinking more of early RNA and DNA life, where ideas like the RNA-world might have happened and applied. RNA can assemble, replicate, and catalyze to form deoxynucleosides in a proto-DNA, without "outside" work needing to happen from enzymes/proteins/etc.

Similarly, RNA and DNA "machines" could have existed before cellular life, in which genetic material self-assembled, transferred genes horizontally/vertically, etc, blurring the lines between genes as "code" and something else.