Grid search
from sklearn.model_selection import GridSearchCV
grid = GridSearchCV(pipe, {"model__C": [0.01, 0.1, 1, 10], "model__penalty": ["l1", "l2"]},
cv=cv, scoring="average_precision", n_jobs=-1)Exhaustive; cost multiplies with every parameter. Good for a handful of discrete choices or a final local refinement.
Random search
from scipy.stats import loguniform, randint
from sklearn.model_selection import RandomizedSearchCV
rs = RandomizedSearchCV(pipe, {"model__C": loguniform(1e-4, 1e2)}, n_iter=40, cv=cv, random_state=0, n_jobs=-1)Each trial samples every parameter, so important parameters get many distinct values. 60 trials find a configuration in the top 5% of the space with 95% probability (if the top 5% region is not tiny).
Successive halving
from sklearn.experimental import enable_halving_search_cv # noqa: F401
from sklearn.model_selection import HalvingRandomSearchCV
hs = HalvingRandomSearchCV(pipe, dist, n_candidates=200, factor=3, resource="n_samples",
min_resources="exhaust", cv=cv, random_state=0, n_jobs=-1)Starts many candidates on few samples, keeps the best 1/factor each round with factor-times more data.
resource can be an estimator parameter (e.g. model__n_estimators for forests). Assumes early ranking on small
resources predicts final ranking.
Hyperband / ASHA
Runs several successive-halving brackets with different starting budgets; ASHA is the asynchronous variant for
many workers. In Optuna: HyperbandPruner / SuccessiveHalvingPruner; in Ray Tune: ASHAScheduler.
Bayesian optimisation (TPE, Gaussian processes)
import optuna
study = optuna.create_study(direction="maximize", sampler=optuna.samplers.TPESampler(seed=0, multivariate=True),
pruner=optuna.pruners.MedianPruner(n_startup_trials=10, n_warmup_steps=1))
study.optimize(objective, n_trials=100, n_jobs=1)- TPE handles conditional and categorical spaces;
multivariate=Truemodels parameter interactions. - GP-based samplers (
GPSampler) are sample-efficient for small continuous spaces. - CMA-ES (
CmaEsSampler) works well for continuous spaces with many trials. - Startup trials (random) seed the model: 10-20.
Pruning
Report an intermediate score (after each CV fold, or every N boosting rounds) and let the pruner stop trials that are below the median of other trials at the same step. Saves 30-70% of compute on GBMs.
Parallelism
| Approach | Notes |
|---|---|
n_jobs=-1 on GridSearch/RandomizedSearch | parallel over candidates x folds |
| Optuna with shared storage (RDB) and several processes | each process runs study.optimize; TPE sees all trials |
| Ray Tune / Dask | cluster-scale |
Do not parallelise both the search and the estimator (n_jobs=-1 twice): oversubscription.
Multi-objective
optuna.create_study(directions=["maximize", "minimize"]) for accuracy vs latency/size; pick from the Pareto
front (study.best_trials).
anomaly-detection-model-builder
Build and evaluate anomaly detection for tabular, sensor and transaction data with few or no labels: define the anomaly type (point, contextual, collective), choose detectors (robust z-score/MAD and IQR rules, Mahalanobis with robust covariance, k-NN distance, LOF, Isolation Forest, one-class SVM, PCA reconstruction / autoencoders, forecasting residuals for time series), combine them by rank, explain each alert by its deviating features, set thresholds from an alert budget or the score distribution, and evaluate with precision@k, PR-AUC and recall on known incidents, or detector agreement when no labels exist. Includes pure-Python detectors (robust z, Mahalanobis, kNN, Isolation Forest, ensemble) and an evaluation script.
catboost-model-builder
Build CatBoost models that use its strengths correctly: raw categorical columns as cat_features (ordered target statistics, no manual encoding), text_features, Pool construction with NaN-safe categories, ordered boosting and has_time for temporal data, symmetric (oblivious) trees, overfitting detector with eval_set and use_best_model, losses for classification, regression (Quantile, Poisson, Tweedie) and ranking (YetiRank), class weights, monotone constraints, feature importance (PredictionValuesChange, LossFunctionChange) and SHAP values, GPU training and model export. Plans cat/text/numeric columns from a CSV and generates a runnable training script, and checks parameter sets for the conflicts CatBoost rejects (iterations vs n_estimators, Bayesian bootstrap with subsample, multiple class-weight options, depth > 16, use_best_model without eval_set).
categorical-encoding-selector
Choose and implement the right encoding for every categorical column given the model family and the data: one-hot (with infrequent-level grouping and handle_unknown), ordinal with an explicit order, cross-fitted target encoding (scikit-learn TargetEncoder, CatBoost ordered statistics, category_encoders inside CV), frequency/count encoding, feature hashing, native categorical support in LightGBM, HistGradientBoosting, XGBoost and CatBoost, prefix levels for codes (zip3, NAICS-2), and embeddings. Measures cardinality, rare-level share, unseen-level rate on a time-ordered holdout and target signal per column, emits the ColumnTransformer, and quantifies target-encoding leakage (in-sample vs out-of-fold vs holdout AUC).
classification-model-selector
Choose the right classification algorithm for tabular, text or mixed data and prove the choice with a fair bake-off: logistic regression (L2, L1, elastic net), linear SVM, naive Bayes, k-NN, RBF SVM, decision trees, random forest, extra trees, HistGradientBoosting, LightGBM, XGBoost, CatBoost, explainable boosting machines (EBM/GAM), points scorecards and MLPs, matched to data size, width, categorical and high-cardinality share, missingness, class imbalance, text, and constraints such as interpretability, monotonic constraints, calibrated probabilities, latency budgets and tiny deployable models. Ranks candidates with starting hyperparameters and cautions, then generates a bake-off script running every candidate on identical CV folds with per-fold metrics, fit time and prediction latency.
clustering-algorithm-selector
Choose the right clustering algorithm and check that clustering makes sense at all: cluster tendency (Hopkins statistic with a correlated-features caveat, nearest-neighbour isolation), then k-means / MiniBatchKMeans, Gaussian mixtures with BIC, agglomerative (Ward, average, complete, single) with dendrograms, DBSCAN, HDBSCAN, OPTICS, spectral clustering, BIRCH, mean shift, k-prototypes and k-modes for mixed or categorical data, and Gower distance, matched to data size, expected shapes, noise, varying density, known k, soft memberships, hierarchy and streaming. Covers preprocessing (scaling, encoding, dimensionality, distance metrics), validation (internal indices, bootstrap stability, external labels, business profiling) and assigning new points.
collaborative-filtering-implementer
Implement collaborative filtering recommenders that beat popularity: item-based kNN with cosine, Jaccard or asymmetric similarity, shrinkage, neighbourhood size, positive-only or mean-centred rating signals and 'because you liked X' explanations; implicit ALS with confidence weighting, BPR pairwise ranking and the closed-form EASE model in plain NumPy, tuned on a temporal validation split by recall@k and NDCG@k and refit on all data; plus user-kNN, explicit matrix factorisation, the implicit/LightFM libraries, hyperparameter ranges, cold-start fallbacks, scaling with sparse matrices and approximate nearest neighbours. Produces top-k lists in the format of the recommendation evaluator.