Sorry but your point is just completely wrong and I am not sure why you have this belief. It is extremely normal and safe to backup SQLite via block device or filesystem snapshots. Are you under the impression that SQLite cannot recover from a power loss...? The whole point of using a log is that you can recover from crashes mid-way through updating the database file by replaying the writes from the log.

If it will convince you, I went and asked ChatGPT like you recommended and it agrees:

> If you want to use snapshots: > Use a filesystem or block-level snapshot tool that guarantees a point-in-time, atomic snapshot (e.g., LVM snapshots, ZFS snapshots, Btrfs snapshots, or VSS on Windows).

If you were going to "Tell SQLite to create checkpoint (write the WAL contents to the main DB) and suspend writes" as you suggest is necessary, why even bother with a snapshot at that point?