Yeah, it's best if it's possible to do it both ways. With url and also by clicking links and maybe even add a select/input to go to certain page.

If you look at any e-commerce systems, ranging from WooCommerce to Shopify, Amazon and Walmart, I think they all use pagination. Some Amazon pages do have infinite scroll however

I have also been frustrated without having the ability to quickly go through commits... Or I think releases for that matter?

For instance, browsing through tags/release versions, which should be a very valid use-case in my opinion also uses cursor based navigation.