Python package for concise, transparent, and accurate predictive modeling. All sklearn-compatible and easily customizable.

docs • imodels overview • demo notebooks

Modern machine-learning models are increasingly complex, often making them difficult to interpret. This package provides a simple interface for fitting and using state-of-the-art interpretable models, all compatible with scikit-learn. These models can often replace black-box models (e.g. random forests) with simpler models (e.g. rule lists) while improving interpretability and computational efficiency, all without sacrificing predictive accuracy! Simply import a classifier or regressor and use the fit and predict methods, same as standard scikit-learn models.

from imodels import BayesianRuleListClassifier, GreedyRuleListClassifier, SkopeRulesClassifier # see more models below
from imodels import SLIMRegressor, RuleFitRegressor

model = BayesianRuleListClassifier()  # initialize a model
model.fit(X_train, y_train)   # fit model
preds = model.predict(X_test) # discrete predictions: shape is (n_test, 1)
preds_proba = model.predict_proba(X_test) # predicted probabilities: shape is (n_test, n_classes)
print(model) # print the rule-based model

-----------------------------
# the model consists of the following 3 rules
# if X1 > 5: then 80.5% risk
# else if X2 > 5: then 40% risk
# else: 10% risk

Install with pip install imodels (see here for help).

Docs 🗂️, Reference code implementation 🔗, Research paper 📄
More models coming soon!

The final form of the above models takes one of the following forms, which aim to be simultaneously simple to understand and highly predictive:

Rule set	Rule list	Rule tree	Algebraic models

Different models and algorithms vary not only in their final form but also in different choices made during modeling. In particular, many models differ in the 3 steps given by the table below.

See the docs for individual models for futher descriptions.

Rule candidate generation	Rule selection	Rule pruning / combination

The code here contains many useful and customizable functions for rule-based learning in the util folder. This includes functions / classes for rule deduplication, rule screening, and converting between trees, rulesets, and neural networks.

Demos are contained in the notebooks folder.

imodels colab demo

Shows how to fit, predict, and visualize with different interpretable models

Different models support different machine-learning tasks. Current support for different models is given below:

• Readings
  • Interpretable ML good quick overview: murdoch et al. 2019, pdf
  • Interpretable ML book: molnar 2019, pdf
  • Case for interpretable models rather than post-hoc explanation: rudin 2019, pdf
  • Review on evaluating interpretability: doshi-velez & kim 2017, pdf
• Reference implementations (also linked above): the code here heavily derives from the wonderful work of previous projects. We seek to to extract out, unify, and maintain key parts of these projects.
  • sklearn-expertsys - by @tmadl and @kenben based on original code by Ben Letham
  • rulefit - by @christophM
  • skope-rules - by the skope-rules team (including @ngoix, @floriangardin, @datajms, Bibi Ndiaye, Ronan Gautier)
• Related packages
  • gplearn: symbolic regression/classification
  • pygam: generative additive models
• Updates
  • For updates, star the repo, see this related repo, or follow @csinva_
  • Please make sure to give authors of original methods / base implementations appropriate credit!
  • Contributing: pull requests very welcome!

If it's useful for you, please cite the package using the below, and make sure to give authors of original methods / base implementations credit:

@software{
    imodels2021,
    title        = {{imodels: a python package for fitting interpretable models}},
    journal      = {Journal of Open Source Software}
    publisher    = {The Open Journal},
    year         = {2021},
    author       = {Singh, Chandan and Nasseri, Keyan and Tan, Yan Shuo and Tang, Tiffany and Yu, Bin},
    volume       = {6},
    number       = {61},
    pages        = {3192},
    doi          = {10.21105/joss.03192},
    url          = {https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.03192},
}