details_boost_tree_catboost: Boosted trees via catboost

In parsnip: A Common API to Modeling and Analysis Functions

Boosted trees via catboost

Description

catboost::catboost.train() creates a series of decision trees forming an ensemble. Each tree depends on the results of previous trees. All trees in the ensemble are combined to produce a final prediction. catboost has native support for categorical predictors.

Details

For this engine, there are multiple modes: regression and classification

Tuning Parameters

This model has 3 tuning parameters:

• tree_depth: Tree Depth (type: integer, default: 6L)

• trees: # Trees (type: integer, default: 1000L)

• learn_rate: Learning Rate (type: double, default: 0.03)

The mtry parameter controls the proportion of predictors that will be randomly sampled at each split. catboost’s rsm argument natively expects a proportion between 0 and 1. The default is to use all predictors (rsm = 1).

Unlike lightgbm and xgboost, bonsai does not currently convert mtry from a count to a proportion for catboost. Users should set counts = FALSE in set_engine() and supply mtry as a proportion directly. For example, mtry = 0.5 with counts = FALSE means 50% of predictors are considered at each split.

Engine-Specific Parameters

CatBoost has a large number of engine parameters. The current list is found at https://catboost.ai/docs/en/references/training-parameters.

Two in particular are:

• max_leaves: Maximum number of leaves in each tree (only used when the grow policy is Lossguide).

• l2_leaf_reg: L2 regularization coefficient for leaf values (default: 3.0).

Translation from parsnip to the original package (regression)

The bonsai extension package is required to fit this model.

boost_tree(
  mtry = integer(), trees = integer(), min_n = integer(), tree_depth = integer(),
  learn_rate = numeric(), sample_size = numeric(), stop_iter = integer()
) |>
  set_engine("catboost") |>
  set_mode("regression") |>
  translate()

## Boosted Tree Model Specification (regression)
## 
## Main Arguments:
##   mtry = integer()
##   trees = integer()
##   min_n = integer()
##   tree_depth = integer()
##   learn_rate = numeric()
##   sample_size = numeric()
##   stop_iter = integer()
## 
## Computational engine: catboost 
## 
## Model fit template:
## bonsai::train_catboost(x = missing_arg(), y = missing_arg(), 
##     weights = missing_arg(), iterations = integer(), depth = integer(), 
##     learning_rate = numeric(), thread_count = 1, allow_writing_files = FALSE, 
##     random_seed = sample.int(10^5, 1))

Translation from parsnip to the original package (classification)

The bonsai extension package is required to fit this model.

boost_tree(
  mtry = integer(), trees = integer(), min_n = integer(), tree_depth = integer(),
  learn_rate = numeric(), sample_size = numeric(), stop_iter = integer()
) |>
  set_engine("catboost") |>
  set_mode("classification") |>
  translate()

## Boosted Tree Model Specification (classification)
## 
## Main Arguments:
##   mtry = integer()
##   trees = integer()
##   min_n = integer()
##   tree_depth = integer()
##   learn_rate = numeric()
##   sample_size = numeric()
##   stop_iter = integer()
## 
## Computational engine: catboost 
## 
## Model fit template:
## bonsai::train_catboost(x = missing_arg(), y = missing_arg(), 
##     weights = missing_arg(), iterations = integer(), depth = integer(), 
##     learning_rate = numeric(), thread_count = 1, allow_writing_files = FALSE, 
##     random_seed = sample.int(10^5, 1))

bonsai::train_catboost() is a wrapper around catboost::catboost.train() (and other functions) that makes it easier to run this model.

Preprocessing requirements

This engine does not require any special encoding of the predictors. Categorical predictors can be partitioned into groups of factor levels (e.g. ⁠{a, c}⁠ vs ⁠{b, d}⁠) when splitting at a node. Dummy variables are not required for this model.

Unlike many other boosting engines, catboost has native support for categorical predictors. When a factor predictor is passed to the model, catboost will compute target-based statistics to create numeric features from the factor levels. This often provides better performance than using dummy variables.

Non-numeric predictors (i.e., factors) are internally converted to numeric using catboost’s native categorical feature handling. In the classification context, non-numeric outcomes (i.e., factors) are also internally converted to numeric.

Case weights

This model can utilize case weights during model fitting. To use them, see the documentation in case_weights and the examples on tidymodels.org.

The fit() and fit_xy() arguments have arguments called case_weights that expect vectors of case weights.

Prediction types

parsnip:::get_from_env("boost_tree_predict") |>
  dplyr::filter(engine == "catboost") |>
  dplyr::select(mode, type)

## # A tibble: 4 x 2
##   mode           type   
##   <chr>          <chr>  
## 1 regression     numeric
## 2 classification class  
## 3 classification prob   
## 4 classification raw

Other details

Bagging

The sample_size argument is translated to the subsample parameter in catboost. The argument is interpreted by catboost as a proportion rather than a count, so bonsai internally reparameterizes the sample_size argument with dials::sample_prop() during tuning.

The default value for subsample depends on the dataset size and the bootstrap type. For datasets with fewer than 100 observations, no sampling is performed (equivalent to sample_size = 1). For larger datasets, the default is 0.66 for Poisson or Bernoulli bootstrap and 0.8 for MVS bootstrap.

Verbosity

bonsai quiets much of the logging output from catboost::catboost.train() by default. With default settings, logged warnings and errors will still be passed on to the user. To print out all logs during training, set quiet = FALSE.

Saving fitted model objects

This model object contains data that are not required to make predictions. When saving the model for the purpose of prediction, the size of the saved object might be substantially reduced by using functions from the butcher package.

Examples

The “Introduction to bonsai” article contains examples of boost_tree() with the "catboost" engine.

References

• CatBoost: unbiased boosting with categorical features

• CatBoost: gradient boosting with categorical features support

parsnip documentation built on May 14, 2026, 5:08 p.m.