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flashlight

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Velocity0.0

R package flashlight by mayer79 — release notes from GitHub.

github.com/mayer79/flashlight ↗

flashlight hit 1.0 by giving away its SHAP feature and making most of its API internal.

model-interpretabilityexplainable-aideprecationapi-contractionggplot2r-package
◆Current state
flashlight computes model-agnostic interpretability output — variable importance, partial dependence and effect profiles, breakdown plots — for fitted models in R. Version 1.0.0 in October 2025 executed a contraction announced two years earlier: add_shap() is deprecated in favour of the separate kernelshap and fastshap packages, type = "shap" is gone from every light_* function that accepted it, and eight previously exported helpers became internal. The release also restored compatibility with ggplot2 v4.
◆Where it's heading
The package is narrowing rather than growing, and doing it on a published schedule — 0.9.0 listed the breaking changes, 1.0.0 applied them essentially unchanged. Handing SHAP computation to dedicated packages leaves flashlight as an effects-and-profiles visualization layer rather than an all-purpose interpretability toolkit. Removing the ability to rename result columns via options() points the same way: fewer configuration surfaces, a smaller contract to maintain.
◆Prediction
With the deprecation list from 0.9.0 now fully applied, the next releases most likely remove the functions currently deprecated rather than adding capability, and continue tracking ggplot2. The entries show no new analysis method in progress.

◆Recent moves

  1. 10mo ago

    SHAP handed off to kernelshap as the public API shrinks

    ⚡ SPARK

    The release that completes the arc 0.9.0 mapped out, and the point where flashlight stops being a general interpretability toolkit. What remains is the effects and profiles layer, with SHAP now someone else's job.

    View source ↗
  2. 3y ago

    Breaking changes for 1.0.0 announced two years ahead

    An announcement release rather than a delivery one: it enumerates the deprecations, the exports about to become internal and the options() removal, all of which 1.0.0 then applied largely as written. Useful as notice, but nothing changes for users who read it at the time.

    View source ↗
  3. 4y ago

    Maintenance release covering package generation

    Described by the author as maintenance only, concerning how the package itself is built. No user-facing change during the quiet period before the 1.0 plan was published.

    View source ↗
  4. 5y ago

    ggpubr dependency removed

    A single merged pull request dropping the ggpubr dependency. An early instance of the dependency and surface trimming that the 1.0.0 release later carried out at scale.

    View source ↗