The file format documentation mentions a "hot WAL file", but this applies only to uncommitted data.
The database file itself does not contain any information about committed data in the -wal
file, i.e., transactions before a checkpoint typically do not alter the main database file at all.
Therefore, deleting the -wal
file will simply restore the database to the state it was after the last checkpoint (which is outdated, but consistent); all transactions committed later will just be lost.