Ideally, we want Jira auto-syncs the Program whenever the page is opened/refreshed (like they do with Jira Plans). At a minimum we should be able to set an auto-sync interval (e.g. daily sync) to ensure the Program never gets too outdated.

Workaround: 

While not a true workaround there is a way to script a REST API to sync a program: 

curl --location --request POST 'BASEURL/rest/jpo/1.0/programs/calculate' \--header 'Authorization: Basic xxxxxxxxx' \--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \--data-raw '{"programId":1}' 

You'll need to know the program ID, it can be gleaned from the URL when loading the program.