Lazily import modules#1026
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Add a _LazyModule proxy class (econml/_lazy.py) that defers module
loading until first attribute access. This keeps lazy import
declarations at the top of each file alongside normal imports,
making the deferred loading explicit and avoiding scattered inline
imports inside function bodies.
Modules deferred:
- shap (+numba, sparse) in econml/_shap.py
- statsmodels.iolib.{table,summary} in econml/utilities.py
- statsmodels.{tools,api,robust} in econml/sklearn_extensions/linear_model.py
- statsmodels.tools.tools in econml/data/dynamic_panel_dgp.py
- statsmodels.{api,tools} in econml/validate/drtester.py
Measured improvement: single-test cold start ~12s -> ~7s (39% faster).
Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Signed-off-by: Keith Battocchi <kebatt@microsoft.com>
Add a lightweight add_constant() to econml/utilities.py that handles array-like input (including numpy arrays and pandas DataFrame/Series) directly. Unlike statsmodels' version it always returns an ndarray — this is documented in the function's Notes section. This eliminates the statsmodels dependency from dynamic_panel_dgp.py entirely, and removes the _statsmodels_tools lazy import from linear_model.py and drtester.py. Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com> Signed-off-by: Keith Battocchi <kebatt@microsoft.com>
Replace 4 deferred imports that existed to avoid circular imports with top-level _LazyModule declarations. The lazy proxy defers the actual importlib.import_module() call until first attribute access, which happens inside function/method bodies after all modules have finished loading — so the circular dependency is still broken, but the import declaration lives at the top of the file. - econml/dml/causal_forest.py: econml.score (RScorer) - econml/inference/_bootstrap.py: econml._cate_estimator (BaseCateEstimator) - econml/sklearn_extensions/linear_model.py: econml.sklearn_extensions.model_selection - econml/_ortho_learner.py: econml.dml._rlearner (_ModelFinal) Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com> Signed-off-by: Keith Battocchi <kebatt@microsoft.com>
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fverac
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Jun 17, 2026
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This PR adds a utility to lazily import modules, and uses it for the following use-cases: