Huh, apparently running sudo nix-channel --update got me the programs.sqlite database.
$ sudo nix-channel --update
$ cat /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos/.git-revision
573095944e7c1d58d30fc679c81af63668b54056
$ ls -l /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos/programs.sqlite
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 10076160 Jan 1 1970 /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos/programs.sqlite
So now the question is, is running nix-channel --update at least once required? Or are there just certain channel commits that don’t have a programs.sqlite generated?