deup 0.4.1

Direct Epistemic Uncertainty Prediction (DEUP) for scikit-learn and gradient-boosting models, with first-class time-series support.

deup

Direct Epistemic Uncertainty Prediction (DEUP) for any scikit-learn model — with first-class, leakage-correct time-series support.

DEUP estimates epistemic uncertainty by training a secondary error predictor on your model's out-of-sample errors — no ensembles, no Bayesian retraining, works with the model you already use.

Method credit: DEUP is due to Lahlou et al., 2023 (TMLR). This package is a maintained, benchmarked, scikit-learn-compatible implementation with time-series / cross-sectional finance support and aggregation-reliability diagnostics.

Repository: https://github.com/ursinasanderink/deup · Docs: https://ursinasanderink.github.io/deup/

Quickstart

from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestRegressor
from deup import DEUPRegressor

model = DEUPRegressor(base_model=RandomForestRegressor())
model.fit(X_train, y_train)

pred, unc = model.predict(X_test, return_uncertainty=True)

Tabular gradient boosting (LightGBM / XGBoost / CatBoost):

from deup.domains.tabular import TabularDEUP

model = TabularDEUP(backend="lgbm", cv=5).fit(X_train, y_train)
unc = model.predict_epistemic(X_test)

Time-series / cross-sectional finance (flagship preset):

from deup.domains.finance import CrossSectionalDEUP

model = CrossSectionalDEUP(horizon=20).fit(panel_df)
pred, unc = model.predict(test_df, return_uncertainty=True)
health = model.health_report(test_df)

Install

pip install deup                 # core (numpy + scikit-learn)
pip install "deup[gbm]"          # + LightGBM (TabularDEUP backend)
pip install "deup[xgb]"          # + XGBoost
pip install "deup[catboost]"     # + CatBoost
pip install "deup[gbm-all]"      # all gradient-boosting backends
pip install "deup[finance]"      # + pandas (CrossSectionalDEUP)
pip install "deup[docs]"         # + MkDocs site locally

Why this package?

The only public DEUP code was a stale research repo of notebooks — no maintained pip-installable package. Major UQ libraries (torch-uncertainty, uncertainty-toolbox, MAPIE) don't implement DEUP. deup fills that gap with leakage-correct OOF error construction and walk-forward / purged CV for time-series and finance.

Comparison (California housing, Spearman ρ vs realized squared error)

Method	ρ	Notes
DEUP	0.509	OOF error predictor (RF base)
DEUP + LightGBM	0.444	TabularDEUP(backend="lgbm")
DEUP + XGBoost	0.400	TabularDEUP(backend="xgb")
DEUP + CatBoost	0.407	TabularDEUP(backend="catboost")
Ensemble disagreement	0.460	Bootstrap variance
Conformal residual	0.447	|y − ŷ| on cal split
Laplace (last-layer)	0.015	Not applicable to trees

Full results: Benchmarks.

Documentation

Topic	Link
Getting started	docs/getting-started
Five-axis guide	docs/concepts
Domain presets	docs/domains
Tutorials	tabular · finance · conformal · active learning
When is agg-g reliable?	reliability
PyTorch / TorchUncertainty	pytorch-integration
Contributing	CONTRIBUTING.md

Status

v0.4.0 — complete library: core DEUP, conformal calibration, reliability diagnostics, domain presets (tabular GBM backends, finance, vision), benchmarks, tutorials, TorchUncertainty integration.

Citing

Cite this software (CITATION.cff) and Lahlou et al. (2023).

License

Apache-2.0. See LICENSE.