v2.8.0

This release improves correctness across AutoML, forecasting, and tuning. It fixes quantized integer sampling bounds, singleton integer search-space normalization, low-cost search-space processing, and independence of suggested configurations from the portfolio. It strengthens time-series evaluation with corrected cross-validation coverage, panel time indices, naive and seasonal-naive forecasts, and R² scoring. Data preparation and metrics improvements include OrdinalEncoder-based categorical encoding, preservation of missing datetimes for imputation, weighted MAPE, clearer errors for binary-only metrics on multiclass data, and support for scalar ROUGE results. It also improves training-log appends and Spark forest prediction, updates pandas compatibility and Windows ARM64 CI, and refreshes documentation and dependencies.

Thank you to all contributors for the PRs, issues, reviewing and testing.

Welcome Raashish Aggarwal (@raashish1601), 林SO (@Linxiushen), Anish Mehta (@anishmehta24), LI (@ktz03), student-shivamm, sarankumar (@sarankumar1325), and Nicoló Angileri (@nicoloangileri) to the community!

What's Changed

• fix: qrandint/qlograndint never sample the documented inclusive upper bound by Amir Fathi (@AmirF194) in #1606
• refactor: use sklearn OrdinalEncoder as source of truth for DataTransformer categorical encoding (#1564) by Imran Ahamed (@immu4989) in #1569
• build(deps): bump codecov/codecov-action from 7.0.0 to 7.1.0 in the github-actions group by Dependabot (@dependabot)[bot] in #1609
• fix: raise a clear error for binary-only metrics on multiclass data by Raashish Aggarwal (@raashish1601) in #1621
• build(deps): bump codecov/codecov-action from 7.1.0 to 7.1.1 in the github-actions group by Dependabot (@dependabot)[bot] in #1617
• build(deps): bump brace-expansion from 5.0.9 to 5.0.12 in /website by Dependabot (@dependabot)[bot] in #1618
• fix: pass sample_weight to the mape metric by Raashish Aggarwal (@raashish1601) in #1619
• build(deps): bump shell-quote from 1.10.0 to 1.12.0 in /website by Dependabot (@dependabot)[bot] in #1623
• build(deps): bump source-map-js from 1.2.1 to 1.2.2 in /website by Dependabot (@dependabot)[bot] in #1624
• build(deps): bump joi from 17.13.7 to 17.13.8 in /website by Dependabot (@dependabot)[bot] in #1625
• build(deps): bump fast-uri from 3.1.7 to 3.1.8 in /website by Dependabot (@dependabot)[bot] in #1626
• build(deps): bump proxy-addr from 2.0.7 to 2.0.8 in /website by Dependabot (@dependabot)[bot] in #1627
• build(deps): bump compression from 1.7.4 to 1.8.2 in /website by Dependabot (@dependabot)[bot] in #1628
• build(deps): bump hydra-core from 1.3.4 to 1.3.7 in /test/pipeline_tuning_example by Dependabot (@dependabot)[bot] in #1629
• fix(automl): include latest observation in time-series CV by 林SO (@Linxiushen) in #1616
• Keep PyArrow compatible with the test NumPy constraint by Li Jiang (@thinkall) with @Copilot in #1638
• build(deps): bump actions/setup-node from 7.0.0 to 7.1.0 in the github-actions group by Dependabot (@dependabot)[bot] in #1635
• Fix Windows ARM64 CI installation by excluding PyArrow by Li Jiang (@thinkall) with @Copilot in #1639
• fix: keep processing the search space after a list low-cost point by Anish Mehta (@anishmehta24) in #1637
• fix: keep suggested configs independent of the portfolio by LI (@ktz03) in #1632
• Fix ROUGE loss adaptation for scalar Evaluate results by student-shivamm in #1633
• build(deps): bump follow-redirects from 1.16.0 to 1.16.1 in /website by Dependabot (@dependabot)[bot] in #1645
• Fix normalization of singleton integer search spaces by 林SO (@Linxiushen) in #1644
• build(deps): bump fast-uri from 3.1.8 to 3.1.9 in /website by Dependabot (@dependabot)[bot] in #1649
• Preserve missing datetimes for median imputation by 林SO (@Linxiushen) in #1650
• Avoid pandas 3.1 deprecations in tabular preprocessing by 林SO (@Linxiushen) in #1648
• Document the real default of index_col in train_test_split_pyspark by Venish Paneliya (@VenishPaneliya) in #1646
• docs: fix dead links in docs, tutorials and tune README by sarankumar (@sarankumar1325) in #1651
• fix: compute time_idx in steps for non-monthly panel data by Anish Mehta (@anishmehta24) in #1636
• fix(automl): safely append training logs by 林SO (@Linxiushen) in #1615
• fix: make naive and snaive forecasts match their definitions by Nicoló Angileri (@nicoloangileri) in #1611
• build(deps): bump joi from 17.13.8 to 17.13.9 in /website by Dependabot (@dependabot)[bot] in #1653
• fix: prevent zero-worker forest prediction in Spark tuning by Li Jiang (@thinkall) in #1657
• Fix reversed R² inputs in time-series estimator scores by 林SO (@Linxiushen) in #1654
• Upgrade version to 2.8.0 by Li Jiang (@thinkall) in #1658

New Contributors

• Raashish Aggarwal (@raashish1601) made their first contribution in #1621
• 林SO (@Linxiushen) made their first contribution in #1616
• Anish Mehta (@anishmehta24) made their first contribution in #1637
• LI (@ktz03) made their first contribution in #1632
• student-shivamm made their first contribution in #1633
• sarankumar (@sarankumar1325) made their first contribution in #1651
• Nicoló Angileri (@nicoloangileri) made their first contribution in #1611

Full Changelog: v2.7.0...v2.8.0