trust-free 1.1.1

Transparent, Robust & Ultra-Sparse Trees (TRUST) - Free Version

trust-free

trust-free is a Python package for fitting interpretable regression models using Transparent, Robust, and Ultra-Sparse Trees (TRUST) — a new generation of Linear Model Trees (LMTs) with state-of-the-art accuracy and intuitive explanations. Currently supports standard regression and experimental time-series regression tasks. Future releases will also tackle other tasks such as classification. This is a free version, limited to datasets of at most 5,000 rows (instances) and 20 columns (features) — a pro version is under development.

Overview

TRUST [1] is a next-generation algorithm based on (sparse) Linear Model Trees (LMTs), which I developed as part of my Ph.D. in Statistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. my Ph.D. in Statistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

LMTs combine the strengths of two popular interpretable machine learning models: Decision Trees (non-parametric) and Linear Models (parametric). Like a standard Decision Tree, they partition data based on simple decision rules. However, the key difference lies in how they evaluate these splits and model the data. Instead of using a simple constant (like the average) to evaluate the goodness of a split, LMTs fit a Linear Model to the data within each node.

This approach means that the final predictions in the leaves are made by a Linear Model rather than a simple constant approximation. This gives Linear Model Trees both the predictive and explicative power of a linear model, while also retaining the ability of a tree-based algorithm to handle complex, non-linear relationships in the data. This way, LMTs can approximate well any Lp function in Lp norm, i.e. can learn almost any function. Importantly, the resulting fitted model is usually compact, making it easier to interpret.

Compared to existing LMT algorithms such as M5 [2], TRUST offers unmatched interpretability and accuracy, approaching that of black-box models like Random Forests [3] — while remaining fully transparent.

References

[1] Dorador, A. (2025). TRUST: Transparent, Robust and Ultra-Sparse Trees. arXiv:2506.15791.

[2] Quinlan, J.R. (1992). Learning with Continuous Classes. Australian Joint Conference on AI, 343–348.

[3] Breiman, L. (2001). Random Forests. Machine Learning, 45(1), 5–32.

Summary of Key Advantages

• 🧠 Combines the flexibility of trees and the power of linear models
• ⚡ Outperforms existing LMTs in accuracy, sparsity and overall interpretability
• 🔍 Full explanation of each prediction
• 🪶 Compact models that are easy to understand and visualize

Features in Free Version

• Solves regression tasks (including a currently experimental 'time series mode')
• Interpretable models with accuracy comparable to Random Forests
• Visual tree structure and comprehensive, automatically-generated explanations on demand
• Multiple variable importance methods (Ghost, Permutation, ALE plots, SHAP values)
• Automatic missing value handling that learns from missingness itself
• Ability to efficiently use continuous and categorical predictor variables

Additional Features in Pro Version

• No dataset size limits [ready]
• Large Language Model (LLM) integration for enhanced explanations [ready]
• Signed (+/-) variable importance plots [ready]
• Out-Of-Distribution detection [ready]
• Interaction ALE plots [planned]
• Further sparsity [planned]
• Faster training [planned]
• Prediction confidence intervals [planned]

What's new in version 1.1.1

• Added:
  1. Automatic handling of de facto numeric columns, i.e. of object type but that can be coerced to float.
  2. Automatic handling in ALE plots of cases with many categorical levels.
  3. Automatic display of tree plot in embedded Plots pane or inline in a Jupyter notebook.
• Changed:
  1. Fixed bug in a print statement.
  2. Minor formatting improvements.
  3. Clarified some aspects in README.md, e.g. python 3.11 support.

Check CHANGELOG.md to see all past release notes.

Installation

You can install this package using pip:

pip install trust-free

📦 Note: The package name on PyPI is trust-free, but the module you import in Python is trust.

⚠️ Currently, trust-free includes a precompiled binary and is only tested and supported for Python 3.11 on macOS 11+ with ARM64 architecture (e.g. M1/M2/M3/M4 chips). Compatibility for other platforms (Intel macOS, Linux, Windows) is planned for future releases.

Usage

Here are two basic examples of how to use the TRUST algorithm:

from trust import TRUST # note the import name is trust, not trust-free
from sklearn.datasets import make_regression
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
from sklearn.metrics import r2_score, mean_squared_error

🧪 Example 1: Sparse Synthetic Regression (n=5000, p=20)

# Create synthetic dataset: 5000 rows and 20 columns (only 10 of which are relevant)
X, y, coefs = make_regression(n_samples=5000, n_features=20, n_informative=10, coef=True, noise=0.1, random_state=123)
print(coefs)
# Make train (80%) - test (20%) split
X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(X, y, test_size=0.2, random_state=123)
# Instantiate and fit your model
model = TRUST()
model.fit(X_train, y_train)
# Predict and print results
y_pred = model.predict(X_test)
print("Predictions:", y_pred[:5])
print("True y values:", y_test[:5])
print("test R\u00B2:", r2_score(y_test, y_pred))
# Obtain prediction explanation for first observation
model.explain(X_test[0,:], y_pred[0], actual=y_test[0]) 
# Obtain (conditional) variable importance by Ghost method (Delicado and Pena, 2023)
model.varImp(X_test, y_test, model, corAnalysis=True)

🩺 Example 2: Diabetes Dataset (n=442, p=10)

import pandas as pd
from sklearn import datasets

# Retrieve and prepare Diabetes dataset from scikit-learn library
Diabetes = pd.DataFrame(datasets.load_diabetes().data)
Diabetes.columns = datasets.load_diabetes().feature_names
diab_target = datasets.load_diabetes().target
Diabetes.insert(len(Diabetes.columns), "Disease_marker", diab_target)
Diabetes_X = Diabetes.iloc[:,:-1]
Diabetes_y = Diabetes.iloc[:,-1]
# Instantiate and fit your model
RLT_Diabetes = TRUST(max_depth=1)
RLT_Diabetes.fit(Diabetes_X,Diabetes_y)
y_pred_TRUST = RLT_Diabetes.predict(Diabetes_X)
# Tree plotting requires Graphviz to be installed in your system path
# You can use e.g. Homebrew: brew install graphviz or Conda: conda install -c conda-forge graphviz
RLT_Diabetes.plot_tree("Diabetes") #will save "tree_plot_Diabetes.png" in your working directory
# Obtain prediction explanation for first observation
RLT_Diabetes.explain(Diabetes_X.iloc[0,:], y_pred_TRUST[0], actual=Diabetes_y.to_list()[0])
# Obtain variable importance with 2 different methods: Ghost and permutation
RLT_Diabetes.varImp(Diabetes_X, Diabetes_y, RLT_Diabetes, corAnalysis=True) #Ghost method
RLT_Diabetes.varImpPerm(Diabetes_X, Diabetes_y, RLT_Diabetes) #Permutation method

Check out our comprehensive tutorial / case study:

https://github.com/adc-trust-ai/trust-free/blob/main/notebooks/trust-free_tutorial.ipynb

License

This software is provided under a Proprietary - Permissive Binary Only license. For detailed terms, please refer to the LICENSE file included with the distribution or visit our official website and Github repo below.

More Information

For more details, documentation, and information about the full upcoming pro (paid) version of the TRUST algorithm, please visit our official website and Github repo:

https://adc-trust-ai.github.io/trust/

https://github.com/adc-trust-ai/trust-free

Further details can be found in our preprint on arxiv:

https://www.arxiv.org/abs/2506.15791