[MNT] maintenance actions

[fkiraly]

We are currently planning to continue maintenance of pycaret in a fork (this), hoping to merge back into the original package.

Background: pycaret#4119

Community input on todos and wishlist is also appreciated.

Suggested procedure

• we use this repository for prioritized work items and maintenance/development actions
• after merge, PR and issues can be transferred back to original repository
• optional: mirroring of PR and issues (selected only)

Maintenance items

release pipeline

• pyproject.toml
• name for fork package agreed
• GHA for release pointing to temporary fork package
• enable dependabot
• pypi release pipeline restart
• conda-forge release pipeline restart

lapsed dependency support and compatibility

• merge dependabot and/or fix compatibility issues
• soft dependency isolation
• python 3.13 support, requires dep isolation and compatibility patches

failing tests

• triage failing tests, open issues
• diagnose and fix

documentation

• readme pointers updated to current status quo
• issues in pycaret prime pointing here
• alternative documentation hosting

roadmap items for consideration or wishlist

• refactoring with cleanup of interfaces towards sklearn
• refactoring with cleanup of interfaces towards sktime
• possible scikit-base refactor or rebuild

[fkiraly]

@amotl, @celestinoxp, @hakan-77, @marrov, input appreciated!

I have prepopulated the list. Anything important missing?

Please let me know if you would like to get engaged, then I can give you write access. @amotl, you mentioned you would be open to work on the packaging and release pipeline?

I can work on dependency isolation to decouple python<3.13 packages, this may require a minimal API or architecture redesign.

Regarding package name, I have so far reserved pycaret-core and pycaret-ni which we can use. Any preferences or other suggestions? ni as in "neighborhood initiative", for instance. "core" is descriptive and also a common suffix.