Fix: handling for context vars. add support for disabling prophet option.

[alxlyj]

Project Robyn

Code Changes

add option for disabling prophet

• The holidays_data parameter is now optional in init with a default of None
• check for Prophet enablement via

prophet_enabled = (
    self.holidays_data is not None
    and self.holidays_data.prophet_vars is not None
    and len(self.holidays_data.prophet_vars) > 0
)

• The code conditionally includes Prophet variables in all_ind_vars only if Prophet is enabled

The implementations between R and Python should match in that:

• Both skip Prophet decomposition when disabled
• Both exclude Prophet variables from feature set
• Both preserve the same core variables (date, dependent var, media vars, context vars)
• Both handle the feature engineering pipeline similarly with/without Prophet

NOTE: We will validate prophet disabled outputs in another PR.

---

handling for context vars

In Python (feature_engineering.py), the _prepare_data method is part of the feature engineering process. It creates a copy of input data and standardizes column names. Right now, it has a problematic hardcoded type conversion. Specifically:

        dt_transform["competitor_sales_B"] = dt_transform["competitor_sales_B"].astype(
            "int64"
        )

In this PR:

• Handle factor variables first
• Only attempt numeric conversion for context variables that:
  • Are not in factor_vars
  • Are currently object dtype (meaning they need conversion)
• More focused logging

This aligns better with R's implementation where:

• Factor variables (like "events") remain categorical
• Numeric variables (like "competitor_sales_B") are treated as numbers
• We don't unnecessarily convert variables that are already in the correct format

---

Notebook demo changes

• Fix default iterations to 2000.
• Added path guidances for local import references.

---

Test

• Ran tutorial1.ipynb without issues.
• pytest Robyn/python/tests/integration/test_feature_engineering.py -v -s
• For more logs: pytest Robyn/python/tests/integration/test_feature_engineering.py -v -s --log-cli-level=DEBUG

collected 9 items                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

python/tests/integration/test_feature_engineering.py::test_feature_engineering_initialization PASSED
python/tests/integration/test_feature_engineering.py::test_prepare_data_with_custom_context PASSED
python/tests/integration/test_feature_engineering.py::test_feature_engineering_with_different_context_vars 18:55:13 - cmdstanpy - INFO - Chain [1] start processing
18:55:13 - cmdstanpy - INFO - Chain [1] done processing
PASSED
python/tests/integration/test_feature_engineering.py::test_feature_engineering_no_context_vars 18:55:13 - cmdstanpy - INFO - Chain [1] start processing
18:55:13 - cmdstanpy - INFO - Chain [1] done processing
PASSED
python/tests/integration/test_feature_engineering.py::test_invalid_context_var PASSED
python/tests/integration/test_feature_engineering.py::test_feature_engineering_with_prophet_disabled PASSED
python/tests/integration/test_feature_engineering.py::test_feature_engineering_with_empty_prophet_vars PASSED
python/tests/integration/test_feature_engineering.py::test_prophet_enable_disable_comparison 18:55:13 - cmdstanpy - INFO - Chain [1] start processing
18:55:13 - cmdstanpy - INFO - Chain [1] done processing
PASSED
python/tests/integration/test_feature_engineering.py::test_feature_engineering_with_prophet_enabled 18:55:13 - cmdstanpy - INFO - Chain [1] start processing
18:55:13 - cmdstanpy - INFO - Chain [1] done processing
PASSED
========================================================================================================================================= 9 passed, 28 warnings in 2.17s =========================================================================================================================================
(

[alxlyj]

We will address further data testing and validation of holiday_data and prophet_vars disabled in a separate PR for #1208

[sumane81]

Looks good to me.