Installation

pretab supports Python 3.10 to 3.13, with the following minimum core dependency versions:

Dependency	Minimum
numpy	1.24
pandas	2.0
scipy	1.10
scikit-learn	1.6

Note

scikit-learn>=1.6 is required for the __sklearn_tags__ tag-dispatch API pretab’s transformers use. A dedicated CI job installs exactly these minimum versions and runs the test suite against them, so this floor is verified, not just declared.

The core dependencies are NumPy >=1.24,<3, pandas >=2,<3, SciPy >=1.10,<2, and scikit-learn >=1.6,<2. The scikit-learn minimum matches the validation and estimator-tag APIs used by PreTab.

From PyPI

pip install pretab

Optional extras

Language-embedding features depend on sentence-transformers. Install them with the embeddings extra (or the convenience all extra):

pip install "pretab[embeddings]"

Note

The embeddings extra installs sentence-transformers and its deep-learning dependencies (including PyTorch), so it is a sizeable download. Add it only if you plan to use the pretrained categorical strategy.

The lightgbm extra enables the gradient-boosted placement_strategy="lightgbm" for supervised knot, center, and threshold selection. By default, PreTab uses the built-in "cart" strategy for target-aware placement, so LightGBM is only needed when you explicitly opt into the boosted strategy:

pip install "pretab[lightgbm]"

Note

The lightgbm extra is required only for placement_strategy="lightgbm". If you do not set that strategy explicitly, PreTab uses the default "cart" path and does not need the optional dependency installed.

The polars extra enables set_output(transform="polars"), so Preprocessor.transform returns a polars.DataFrame instead of a NumPy array or dict:

pip install "pretab[polars]"

Note

polars is only needed for the set_output(transform="polars") output path; every other output (output_structure="matrix"/"blocks", output_format="dense"/"sparse", set_output(transform="pandas")) works without it. Requesting "polars" output without the extra installed raises a clear OptionalDependencyError.

Use the convenience all extra to install every optional dependency at once:

pip install "pretab[all]"

From source

pretab uses Poetry for dependency management and just as a command runner.

git clone https://github.com/OpenTabular/PreTab
cd PreTab
just install

Without just, run the equivalent steps directly:

poetry install
poetry run pre-commit install --hook-type commit-msg --hook-type pre-commit --hook-type pre-push

To check that everything works end to end, run the quickstart script. It exercises mixed preprocessing, feature lineage, leakage-safe cross-fitting, serialization, and more in a few seconds, and doubles as the reviewer smoke test:

just quickstart   # or: python scripts/quickstart.py

To work on the documentation, also install the docs group:

poetry install --with docs

Verify the installation

import pretab

print(pretab.__version__)