[theme] Channel tokens not created in 7.3.10 (breaking change)

[Xhale1]

Steps to reproduce

1. Enable nativeColor in theme
2. Upgrade to 7.3.10
3. Observe some channel tokens not being created when they previously were

Current behavior

It looks like this behavior was modified intentionally in #48144. When using nativeColor: true, I'm observing that theme.vars.palette.background.defaultChannel becomes undefined in my app after upgrading to 7.3.10 where previously it was defined.

Expected behavior

Theme tokens do not change between minor versions.

Context

I'm in a bit of a rush so apologies for the limited bug report. Happy to provide more details if needed!

Your environment

npx @mui/envinfo

  System:
    OS: macOS 26.4.1
  Binaries:
    Node: 24.14.1 - /Users/REDACTED/.nvm/versions/node/v24.14.1/bin/node
    npm: 11.11.0 - /Users/REDACTED/.nvm/versions/node/v24.14.1/bin/npm
    pnpm: 10.33.0 - /Users/REDACTED/.nvm/versions/node/v24.14.1/bin/pnpm
  Browsers:
    Chrome: 147.0.7727.56
    Edge: Not Found
    Firefox: Not Found
    Safari: 26.4
  npmPackages:
    typescript: ~6.0.2 => 6.0.2

Search keywords: nativeColor

[ZeeshanTamboli]

Yes, they are not generated intentionally. You should not rely on *Channel tokens when using nativeColor. See https://mui.com/material-ui/migration/upgrade-to-native-color/#remove-usage-of-channel-tokens. Instead, use theme color functions.

IMO, it's not a breaking change because nativeColor was introduced in v7.3.0 and it's assumed that users won't rely on channel tokens if they are using the nativeColor feature.

Theme tokens do not change between minor versions.

You mean patch versions, right? When nativeColor was introduced it was a minor version update.

There's also a codemod available to migrate: https://mui.com/material-ui/migration/upgrade-to-native-color/#codemod

Edit: An example PR where it was migrated: lifinance/widget#697

[github-actions]

This issue has been closed. If you have a similar problem but not exactly the same, please open a new issue.
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