> GitHub seems to encourage a "push model" in which you are notified when a new event occurs in your project(s), but I don't want to work with that model. Instead, I prefer it to work as a "pull model", so I only get updates when I specifically look for them.

I agree with the sentiment, but want to point out that email can be used to turn push into pull, by auto-filtering the respective email notifications into a separate dedicated email folder, which you can choose to only look at when you want.

And if that’s unsatisfactory, GitHub has its own notifications part of the UI.

This is in search of a problem.