prepro-auto 1.0.0b3

AI-assisted, human-in-the-loop tabular data preprocessing — profile, clean, transform, and export any dataset with a reproducible pipeline, from a notebook or the web.

PrePro Auto

AI-assisted tabular data preprocessing with human-in-the-loop control.

Profile, clean, transform, and export any tabular dataset — from a Jupyter notebook or a local web UI — with every step undoable, auditable, and reproducible. The same engine drives both interfaces, so results are identical wherever you call it from.

pip install prepro-auto

Author: Shivanshu Pandey · Source: github.com/Chilliflex/prepro_auto

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Contents

• Quickstart — get going in 30 seconds
• Ways to give PrePro Auto your data — 4 from notebook, 3 from web UI
• 1. Input functions (notebook) — how to load data into a session
• 2. Preprocessing functions — clean, transform, visualize
• 3. Output functions — DataFrames, files, audit PDFs, pipelines
• AI providers — optional, 5 providers supported
• REST API reference
• Documentation

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Quickstart

Notebook (recommended for data scientists):

import prepro_auto

# Easiest: point at a file, auto-detects encoding (handles Latin-1, cp1252, BOM)
session = prepro_auto.launch_file(r"C:\path\to\your_data.csv")
# Click the printed http://127.0.0.1:8721/workbench?job=... link

Web UI (recommended for analysts): open Command Prompt (not Jupyter) and run:

prepro_auto

Then open http://127.0.0.1:8000/workbench and drag-drop a file.

Note: prepro_auto typed inside a Jupyter cell just prints the module object — it doesn't start a server. The CLI command runs from a terminal only. Inside a notebook, use prepro_auto.launch_file(path) or prepro_auto.launch(df) instead.

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Ways to give PrePro Auto your data

There are 4 input methods in the notebook and 3 in the web UI. Pick whichever fits your workflow.

From a Jupyter notebook (4 ways)

#	Method	When to use it
1	prepro_auto.launch_file(path)	You have a file on disk — CSV, Excel, JSON, Parquet, etc. Easiest path. Auto-detects encoding and delimiter. No pd.read_csv() needed.
2	prepro_auto.launch(df)	You already have a pandas DataFrame in memory (from a database query, API response, generated data, or a tricky read you handled yourself).
3	session.update(df)	You already have a session and want to push a new DataFrame to it (e.g. after notebook-side edits). Commits a new undoable version.
4	Web upload, then notebook reads	Start the server with the CLI, upload via browser, then in the notebook do prepro_auto.Session(job_id, port).current() to pull the data back into Python. Rare but valid.

From the web UI (3 ways)

#	Method	When to use it
1	Drag-and-drop upload on Step 1 of the workbench	Standard. Drop a CSV/Parquet/Excel/JSON file into the upload box. The engine auto-detects encoding and delimiter.
2	File picker on Step 1	Same as drag-and-drop, just clicked. Useful when dragging is awkward (split screens, touchpads).
3	URL parameter ?job=<id>	When the notebook launched the session, the printed URL already includes ?job=... — no upload needed, the workbench adopts the existing job.

Supported file formats

Format	Extensions	Notes
CSV	.csv, .tsv, .txt	Auto-detects encoding (utf-8 / utf-8-sig / latin-1 / cp1252) and delimiter (comma, tab, semicolon, pipe)
Excel	.xlsx, .xls, .xlsm	First sheet by default; multi-sheet handling via the upload form
Parquet	.parquet, .pq	Fastest format for large datasets, preserves dtypes
JSON	.json, .jsonl, .ndjson	JSON-records and JSON-lines both supported
Feather	.feather	Apache Arrow's native columnar format

Not supported: PDF, DOCX, HTML, images. PrePro Auto is a tabular-data tool — these formats need a dedicated extraction step first (Camelot or pdfplumber for PDFs, BeautifulSoup for HTML).

Have a PDF with a table?

Extract it to a DataFrame first, then hand it to PrePro Auto:

import pdfplumber, pandas as pd, prepro_auto

with pdfplumber.open("report.pdf") as pdf:
    rows = pdf.pages[0].extract_table()        # pick the right page
df = pd.DataFrame(rows[1:], columns=rows[0])    # first row is the header
session = prepro_auto.launch(df)                # now clean it like any DataFrame

For PDFs with merged cells or complex layouts, try camelot-py (better for bordered tables) or tabula-py (requires Java). PrePro Auto deliberately leaves PDF extraction to specialised tools because generic PDF-to-table conversion succeeds only ~30–70% of the time depending on the document — bundling it would mean silent extraction errors hidden under PrePro Auto's name.

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1. Input functions (notebook)

Everything you call before preprocessing starts. The functions that get data into a session.

Function	Parameters	Returns	What it does
prepro_auto.launch_file(file_path, domain="general", port=None, open_browser=False)	file_path: str or Path	Session	Reads a file from disk with auto-encoding-detection, starts the local workbench, returns a session. Handles all supported formats. Prints the workbench URL.
prepro_auto.launch(df, domain="general", port=None, open_browser=False)	df: pandas DataFrame	Session	Registers an in-memory DataFrame as a job (no upload, no file I/O), starts the workbench, returns a session. Use when you already have a DataFrame.
prepro_auto.Session(job_id, port)	job_id: str, port: int	Session	Reconnect to an existing session by ID. Use when the notebook restarted but the server is still running, or to attach to a job created from the web UI.
prepro_auto.set_api_key(provider, api_key, model=None)	provider: one of "groq" / "openai" / "anthropic" / "gemini" / "mistral"	dict with ok, verified, provider, model, reason	Configures the AI provider at runtime (in-memory only — not written to disk). Makes a tiny test call to verify the key works. Call before launch() if you want AI features active for the session.

Example — most common pattern:

import prepro_auto

# Optional: enable AI features for this session
prepro_auto.set_api_key("openai", "sk-...")

# Load a file (auto-encoding-detection)
session = prepro_auto.launch_file(r"C:\Users\me\data\sales.csv")

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2. Preprocessing functions

The work itself — clean, transform, version. These are called on the session object that input functions returned, or via REST endpoints under /api/v1/.

Profile and clean

Function / Endpoint	What it does
POST /datasets/{job_id}/profile	Per-column type inference, missing rates, 0–100 quality score. Run once after upload.
POST /datasets/{job_id}/stages/missing_values	Detect missingness mechanism (MCAR / MAR / MNAR), recommend fill strategy per column. Creates decision cards.
POST /datasets/{job_id}/stages/outliers	IQR + modified Z-score + Isolation Forest. Classifies findings as data errors vs rare events.
POST /datasets/{job_id}/stages/scaling	Normality-driven scaler choice: Standard / Robust / Box-Cox / Yeo-Johnson / MinMax / log1p.
POST /datasets/{job_id}/stages/correlation	Find correlated pairs, detect constant / ID-like / target-leaking columns.
POST /datasets/{job_id}/stages/encoding	Categorical encoding routed by cardinality: label / ordinal / one-hot / frequency / target.
POST /datasets/{job_id}/stages/{stage_name}/execute	Apply your approved decisions, commit a new version. stage_name is one of the five above.

Decision cards (the human-in-the-loop)

Endpoint	What it does
GET /datasets/{job_id}/decisions?stage=<stage>	List decision cards for a stage
POST /decisions/{decision_id}/approve	Use the recommended action
POST /decisions/{decision_id}/override	Use an alternative action (body: {"action": "...", "reason": "..."})
POST /decisions/{decision_id}/skip	Don't change this column
POST /decisions/{decision_id}/drop-column	Drop the column entirely

Manual transforms (when you need more control)

Endpoint	What it does
GET /datasets/{job_id}/transform/operations	List all 17 preset operations and their parameters
POST /datasets/{job_id}/transform/preset	Apply one preset op (rename, drop, cast, fillna, filter, merge, math, map, string ops, regex, sort, dedup, extract-number)
POST /datasets/{job_id}/transform/expression	Run a sandboxed pandas expression (e.g. df["profit"] = df["revenue"] - df["cost"])
POST /datasets/{job_id}/transform/batch	Apply one operation across many columns as a single undoable step

AI-assisted transforms (optional, needs an API key)

Endpoint	What it does
POST /datasets/{job_id}/transform/ai-propose	Describe a change in plain English; AI proposes a concrete transform with preview
POST /datasets/{job_id}/transform/ai-advise	Ask the AI for advice on a column without changing anything
POST /datasets/{job_id}/transform/assistant	One-shot assistant call (full message)
POST /datasets/{job_id}/transform/chat	Multi-turn conversation preserving history

Versioning and history

Endpoint	What it does
GET /datasets/{job_id}/view	Current (active-version) data with shape, dtypes, sample rows
GET /datasets/{job_id}/history	Full version history with labels
POST /datasets/{job_id}/undo	Move active pointer back one version
POST /datasets/{job_id}/redo	Move active pointer forward one version
GET /datasets/{job_id}/snapshots	List all committed snapshots

Visualization and monitoring

Endpoint	What it does
POST /datasets/{job_id}/viz/chart	Build a histogram, bar, or scatter chart
POST /datasets/{job_id}/viz/metric	Compute a condition-based metric (e.g. "rows where price > 1000")
POST /datasets/{job_id}/viz/compare	Compare one column's distribution raw vs current
GET /datasets/{job_id}/viz/dashboard	Power-BI-style before/after dashboard (KPI tiles + per-column comparison)
POST /drift/compare	Compare two uploaded datasets for distribution drift (PSI + KS)

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3. Output functions

The artifacts you take away from a session. Notebook methods return Python objects; REST endpoints return downloadable files.

From the notebook (Python objects)

Method	Returns	Where to use it
session.current()	pandas DataFrame	The current (active-version) DataFrame as it stands in the UI. Drop straight into model.fit(X, y).
session.url	str	The workbench URL for this session — useful for re-opening after closing the tab.
session.job_id	str	The internal job ID — use it for raw REST API calls.
session.port	int	The local port the server is running on.

From the REST API or web UI (downloadable files)

Endpoint	File	Where to use it
GET /datasets/{job_id}/export/data?format=csv	Cleaned CSV	Share with teammates, load into BI tools (Tableau, Power BI, Looker), commit to a versioned data repo.
GET /datasets/{job_id}/export/data?format=parquet	Cleaned Parquet	Faster and smaller than CSV for large datasets; preserves dtypes exactly.
GET /datasets/{job_id}/export/audit	Audit PDF	Compliance trail listing every transformation with parameters, before/after stats, who approved. Attach to a model-card or hand to a data-governance reviewer.
GET /datasets/{job_id}/export/pipeline	Runnable .py script	Reproduces the exact cleaning with pandas + scikit-learn, no PrePro Auto dependency. Drop into Airflow / Prefect / GitHub Actions. Run with python pipeline.py raw.csv ready.csv.
POST /drift/compare (returns JSON)	Drift report	Per-column PSI / KS verdicts with severity bands. Plug into a monitoring dashboard, alert on overall_verdict == "significant_drift".

Two typical workflows end-to-end

# Workflow 1 — notebook to model, no file I/O:
session = prepro_auto.launch_file(r"C:\data\sales.csv")
# ...clean visually in the browser, then:
X = session.current().drop(columns=["target"])
y = session.current()["target"]
model.fit(X, y)

# Workflow 2 — clean once, productionize the pipeline:
# 1) Download pipeline.py from the workbench's Export step
# 2) Commit it to your model repo
# 3) In production:
#    subprocess.run(["python", "pipeline.py", "incoming.csv", "ready.csv"])

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What it does

• Profile — per-column type inference, missing rates, 0–100 quality score
• Clean (guided) — five HITL stages: missing values, outliers, scaling, correlation/leakage, encoding
• Transform (manual) — 17 preset ops, sandboxed expressions, multi-column batches
• AI assistant — optional; describe a change in plain English; preview before applying
• Visualize & dashboard — histograms, bar, scatter; before/after dashboard with KPI tiles
• Data drift — PSI + KS test between two datasets
• Undo/redo — every change is a version
• Export — cleaned data (CSV/Parquet), audit PDF, runnable Python pipeline

Methods

Field-standard methods throughout: MICE / KNN / median imputation, IQR + MAD + Isolation Forest for outliers, normality-driven scaling (Standard / Robust / Box-Cox / Yeo-Johnson), label / ordinal / one-hot / frequency / target encoding. No accuracy compromises — the same algorithms a data scientist would write by hand.

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AI providers (optional)

AI features are optional. Everything works offline without a key. PrePro Auto supports five providers:

Provider	ID	Install	Get a key
Groq (free tier, fast)	groq	pip install prepro-auto[groq]	https://console.groq.com
OpenAI / GPT	openai	pip install prepro-auto[openai]	https://platform.openai.com
Anthropic Claude	anthropic	pip install prepro-auto[anthropic]	https://console.anthropic.com
Google Gemini	gemini	pip install prepro-auto[gemini]	https://aistudio.google.com/app/apikey
Mistral	mistral	pip install prepro-auto[mistral]	https://console.mistral.ai

Or install all five at once: pip install prepro-auto[ai].

Three ways to give PrePro Auto your API key

1. Notebook (in-memory, session-only — safest):

prepro_auto.set_api_key("openai", "sk-...")

2. Web UI: click AI Provider → Configure API key in the side rail, paste key, click Test & apply.

3. .env file (survives restarts):

LLM_PROVIDER=openai
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...

Security note: the .env file is plain text. Fine for a personal machine; never enable disk-persistence on a shared or hosted deployment.

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REST API reference

The web app and SDK both call the same endpoints under /api/v1. Once the server is running, the interactive Swagger UI is at http://localhost:8000/docs.

For the full table organized by category, see Section 2 — Preprocessing functions and Section 3 — Output functions above. System endpoints:

Endpoint	Purpose
GET /api/v1/health	Liveness check
GET /api/v1/system/limits	Live RAM-aware upload limits
GET /api/v1/system/llm	List providers + active one
POST /api/v1/system/llm/configure	Set provider + key at runtime

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Documentation

• Project Overview (PDF) — what it is, who it's for, design philosophy
• Developer Guide (PDF) — every function, endpoint, UI element
• Update Guide (PDF) — for maintainers shipping new versions
• Interactive Swagger at http://localhost:8000/docs (once running)

License

MIT