mlforgex

mlforgex is an end-to-end machine learning automation package for Python. It allows you to train, evaluate, and make predictions with minimal effort — handling data preprocessing, model selection, hyperparameter tuning, and artifact generation automatically. It supports both classification and regression problems and ships with sensible defaults to get you started quickly while providing advanced options for production workflows.

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Table of contents

• Key features
• Installation
• Requirements
• Quickstart (train → predict)
  • CLI quickstart
  • Python API quickstart
• Detailed features & explanations
• CLI reference (flags explained)
• Artifacts & outputs (what is saved)
• How it works (high-level pipeline)
• Advanced options & integrations
• Examples
• Testing
• License & author

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Key features

• Automatic data preprocessing: missing value handling, outlier & duplicate removal, encoding, scaling, and multicollinearity handling.

• Automatic problem detection: classification vs regression; binary vs multiclass detection.

• Imbalanced data handling: SMOTE (oversampling), under-sampling, auto detection and application.

• Model training & evaluation: trains a candidate model pool and selects the best model using task-appropriate metrics and cross-validation.

• Artifact saving: trained model, preprocessing pipeline, encoder, metrics, plots, and feature importances are saved to disk.

• Visualizations: correlation heatmap, confusion matrix, ROC, learning/residual curves, feature importance.

• Progress bars & parallel training: uses tqdm for progress and n_jobs for parallelism.

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Installation

Install the package from PyPI:

pip install mlforgex

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Requirements

Minimum tested environment:

• Python >= 3.8
• pandas
• numpy
• scikit-learn
• matplotlib
• seaborn
• xgboost
• imbalanced-learn
• tqdm
• scipy
• requests

See the full list in requirements.txt.

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Quickstart (train → predict)

You can train using the CLI or the Python API. The library auto-detects task type (classification vs regression) from the target column and runs an appropriate pipeline.

CLI quickstart

# Train (example)
mlforge-train \
  --data_path path/to/data.csv \
  --dependent_feature TargetColumn \
  --rmse_prob 0.3 \
  --f1_prob 0.7 \
  --n_jobs -1 \
  --n_iter 100 \
  --cv 3 \
  --artifacts_dir artifacts
# add --fast to speed up the run

After training, run prediction on new rows:

mlforge-predict \
  --model_path artifacts/model.pkl \
  --preprocessor_path artifacts/preprocessor.pkl \
  --input_data path/to/new_data.csv \
  --encoder_path artifacts/encoder.pkl  # only for classification
# add --no-predicted_data to disable saving predicted data 

Python API quickstart

from mlforgex import train_model, predict

train_model(
    data_path="data.csv",
    dependent_feature="TargetColumn",
    rmse_prob=0.3,   # weight used to rank regression models
    f1_prob=0.7,     # weight used to rank classification models
    n_jobs=-1,
    n_iter=100,
    cv=3,
    artifacts_dir="artifacts",
    fast=False       # set True to skip tuning and go faster
)

preds = predict(
    model_path="artifacts/model.pkl",
    preprocessor_path="artifacts/preprocessor.pkl",
    input_data_path="new_data.csv",
    encoder_path="artifacts/encoder.pkl"  # optional
)
print(preds[:10])

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Detailed features & explanations

This section explains each major feature and what it does, so users understand what to expect and how to customize behavior.

Automatic Data Preprocessing

• Missing value handling: numeric columns get imputed with mean or median (auto chosen); categorical columns use mode or a constant label depending on frequency and cardinality.
• Outlier removal: optional z-score or IQR-based outlier removal; configurable via API/CLI. Defaults are conservative to avoid dropping useful data.
• Duplicate removal: exact duplicate rows are removed before training.
• Encoding: low-cardinality categoricals → One-Hot Encoding; high-cardinality → Ordinal/Target encoding (configurable). Encoders are saved to encoder.pkl for reproducible inference.
• Scaling: StandardScaler by default for many models.
• Feature dropping & multicollinearity: constant/near-constant features dropped; highly collinear features identified (via VIF) and handled to reduce redundancy.

Automatic Problem Detection

• Inspects dependent_feature values to decide:
  • Regression if target dtype is numeric and has many unique values.
  • Classification if target is categorical / few unique values.
• For classification, detects binary vs multiclass and adjusts metric selection accordingly.

Imbalanced Data Handling

• Performs imbalance check (class distribution threshold configurable).
• If imbalance is detected, the pipeline can apply:
  • SMOTE (Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique)
  • Random under-sampling (or combinations like SMOTE + Tomek links)
• Resampling is applied only to the training fold inside cross-validation to avoid data leakage.

Model Training & Evaluation

• Trains a set of candidate models appropriate for the task (linear models, tree ensembles, boosting machines, etc.).
• Uses cross-validation to estimate per-model performance.
• Selects the best model using a composite scoring policy:
  • For classification: F1 / ROC-AUC prioritized (configurable via --f1_prob weight).
  • For regression: RMSE / R² prioritized (configurable via --rmse_prob weight).

Hyperparameter Tuning

• Tuning via RandomizedSearchCV.
• Controlled via --n_iter and --cv for RandomizedSearchCV, and --n_jobs for parallelism.
• Fast mode (--fast) bypasses tuning and uses robust default hyperparameters for each model—this drastically reduces runtime at the cost of potentially suboptimal model hyperparameters. Use --fast for quick iteration or when compute is limited.

Artifact Saving & Reproducibility

• Saves these artifacts to artifacts_dir:
  • model.pkl — best performing, serialized model
  • preprocessor.pkl — fitted preprocessing pipeline (encoders, scalers)
  • encoder.pkl — label/target encoder (classification only)
  • metrics.txt — train/test metrics
  • Plots/ — saved PNGs of the generated visualizations

Visualizations & Reporting

• Automatically generates and saves:
  • Correlation heatmap (features)
  • Confusion matrix
  • ROC curve
  • Precision-Recall curve
  • Learning curve (train vs validation)
  • Feature importance bar chart
  • Residual plots

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CLI reference (flags explained)

Train command

mlforge-train \
  --data_path <path> \
  --dependent_feature <column> \
  --rmse_prob <float> \
  --f1_prob <float> \
  [--n_jobs <int>] \
  [--n_iter <int>] \
  [--cv <int>] \
  [--artifacts_dir <path>] \
  [--artifacts_name <name>] \
  [--fast]

Flag	Type	Default	Explanation
--data_path	str	—	CSV file path to the dataset. Must include header row and the target column.
--dependent_feature	str	—	Name of the target column to predict.
--rmse_prob	float	0.3	Ranking weight for regression models (higher means RMSE is prioritized).
--f1_prob	float	0.7	Ranking weight for classification models (higher means F1 is prioritized).
--n_jobs	int	-1	Number of CPU cores used for parallelism (-1 uses all available cores).
--n_iter	int	100	Number of parameter settings sampled when RandomizedSearchCV is used.
--cv	int	3	Number of cross-validation folds.
--artifacts_dir	str	None	Directory where artifacts, metrics, and plots will be saved.
--artifacts_name	str	artifacts	Name of the artifacts directory.
--fast	flag	False	Enable fast mode. This is a boolean flag — include it to enable. When enabled: skips hyperparameter tuning and uses strong defaults for models to produce results much faster. Example usage: --fast.

Important notes:

• --fast is a flag; do not pass True/False as value. Use --fast to enable fast mode, omit it to run in full mode.
• rmse_prob and f1_prob act as relative weights. Only the appropriate one is used for the detected task type (the other is ignored).

Predict command

mlforge-predict \
  --model_path <model.pkl> \
  --preprocessor_path <preprocessor.pkl> \
  --input_data <input.csv> \
  --encoder_path <encoder.pkl> 

Flag	Type	Default	Explanation
--model_path	str	—	Path to the trained model pickle.
--preprocessor_path	str	—	Path to the preprocessing pipeline pickle.
--input_data	str	—	CSV file with rows to predict (same feature columns except target).
--encoder_path	str	—	Path to the encoder pickle (classification only). If not provided for classification, predictions will be returned as encoded values.
--predicted_data	flag	True	Saves the input data with prediction column.

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Important notes:

• --predicted_data is a flag; do not pass True/False as value. Use --no-predicted_data to disable saving predicted data.

Artifacts & outputs (what is saved)

After a training run, the artifacts_dir contains:

artifacts/
├─ model.pkl                 # Serialized best model
├─ preprocessor.pkl          # Fitted preprocessing pipeline
├─ encoder.pkl               # Label encoder (classification)
├─ metrics.txt             # Text file with train/test metrics & CV results
└─ Plots/
   ├─ correlation_heatmap.png
   ├─ confusion_matrix.png
   ├─ roc_curve.png
   ├─ precision_recall.png
   ├─ learning_curve.png
   ├─ feature_importance.png
   └─ residuals.png

The metrics.txt contains entries such as:

Message: Training completed successfully
Problem type: Regression
Model: RandomForestRegressor
Output feature: ...
Categorical features: [...]
Numerical features: [...]
Train R2: ...
Train RMSE: ...
Test R2: ...
Test RMSE: ...
Hyper tuned: False
Dropped Columns: [....]



Arguments used :- 
data_path: ...
dependent_feature: ...
rmse_prob: 0.5
f1_prob: 0.5
n_jobs: -1
n_iter: 100
n_splits: 5
fast: False
artifacts_dir: None
artifacts_name: ...
corr_threshold: 0.85
skew_threshold: 1
z_threshold: 3
overfit_threshold: 0.15

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How it works (high-level pipeline)

1. Load & validate data: Reads CSV, checks for target column, basic schema validation.
2. Problem detection: Infers whether we have regression or classification.
3. Preprocessing: Missing value imputation, encoding, scaling, duplicate/outlier removal.
4. Imbalance handling: If classification and imbalance detected, apply resampling on training folds.
5. Candidate model training: Train a curated set of models appropriate for the detected task.
6. (Optional) tuning: Use randomized/grid search to tune hyperparameters (skipped in --fast). Tuning runs inside CV to avoid leak.
7. Model selection: Rank models by composite score derived from f1_prob/rmse_prob and pick the best.
8. Save artifacts & report: Store model, pipeline, metrics, plots, and run config for reproducibility.

Examples

Minimal CLI example (regression)

mlforge-train --data_path housing.csv --dependent_feature SalePrice --cv 5 --n_iter 50 --artifacts_dir housing_artifacts

Predicting from Python

from mlforgex import predict
preds = predict("artifacts/model.pkl", "artifacts/preprocessor.pkl", "new_rows.csv", encoder_path=None)
print(preds.head())

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Testing

Run tests with:

pytest test/

Include unit tests that check:

• Preprocessing pipeline idempotence
• Correct problem detection behavior
• Model training produces expected keys in metrics.txt
• Predict pipeline loads and transforms inputs without error

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License & author

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

Author: Priyanshu Mathur
📧 [email protected]
Portfolio: https://my-portfolio-phi-two-53.vercel.app/
PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/mlforgex/

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