My USCIS online account shows updates in the case history, but no official notices are uploaded yet, which makes me unsure what to trust, so does the portal usually catch up later or should missing notices be a reason to follow up?

That’s pretty common and usually not something to panic about. The case history often updates first when USCIS touches the file, and the actual notice upload can lag behind by a few days or even longer. Most of the time the notice shows up later without you doing anything. If a week or two passes and there’s still no notice and the update seems important, that’s when it makes sense to follow up, but short gaps like that are just the portal being slow and out of sync.