I am using a coding agent (Claude Code) - but the question could be applied to any other I think.

Right now by using an access token, my coding agent can have access to a project in gitlab. It can create issues, create MR, etc.

However before doing this I was really looking forrward to use gitlab's MCP server.

(The only reason I started using access tokens was because the gitlab installation at work is old and does not support MCP)

My question is, what is the advantage of using gitlab's MCP server over just using access tokens. Is there any reason why I should use the MCP server?