[snip]
Interesting that you ask this! I say that because it's actually a case that pgbackrest contemplated and explicitly added support for- specifically, if you set --archive-copy (or archive-copy=true) and disable compression (or decompress everything before you start PG), then you can just start PG from the backup and it'll perform the necessary recovery from the WAL and start up. We considered this an interesting use-case and used it extensively and have maintained support for it. All that said, of course, this limits the ability to do typical PITR, but at least it gives you a consistent backup which you can start PG from.
In the SQL Server world, that's a COPY_ONLY backup.
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Angular momentum makes the world go 'round.
Angular momentum makes the world go 'round.