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Changelog

Source: NEWS.md

bbotk (development version)

bbotk 1.7.1

CRAN release: 2025-10-24

fix: Imbalanced protection and casting in C code. fix: Load required packages in worker loop.

bbotk 1.7.0

CRAN release: 2025-10-10

  • BREAKING CHANGE: Replace OptimizerBatchLocalSearch with a faster C implementation.
  • feat: Add par parameter to OptimizerGenSA.
  • BREAKING CHANGE: Replace start parameter from OptimizerNloptr with x0 parameter.
  • feat: Expose internal termination criteria of Optimizers.
  • feat: Store required packages in Objective$packages.
  • feat: Fail queued and running points when optimization is terminated.
  • fix: Pass n_workers to rush.
  • feat: Kill rush worker after optimization.
  • feat: Add tiny logging mode.

bbotk 1.6.0

CRAN release: 2025-06-03

  • BREAKING CHANGE: The mlr3 ecosystem has a base logger now which is named mlr3. The mlr3/bbotk logger is a child of the mlr3 logger and is used for logging messages from the bbotk and mlr3tuning package.
  • feat: Classes are now printed with the cli package.
  • fix: Prevent switching of xss and constants.
  • fix: Add saveguard on OptimizerNloptr bounds.
  • feat: Allow numerical gradient approximation in OptimizerNloptr.

bbotk 1.5.0

CRAN release: 2024-12-17

  • compatibility: irace 4.1.0
  • compatibility: rush 0.2.0
  • refactor: Replace Codomain$maximization_to_minimization with $direction field.
  • feat: Save ArchiveAsync to a data.table with ArchiveAsyncFrozen.

bbotk 1.4.1

CRAN release: 2024-11-27

  • compatibility: irace 4.0.0

bbotk 1.4.0

CRAN release: 2024-11-26

  • feat: Add OptimizerBatchChain that runs multiple optimizers sequentially.
  • refactor: Only pass extra to $assign_result().

bbotk 1.3.0

CRAN release: 2024-11-07

  • feat: Add new stage on_result_begin to CallbackAsyncTuning and CallbackBatchTuning.
  • refactor: Rename stage on_result to on_result_end in CallbackAsyncTuning and CallbackBatchTuning.
  • docs: Extend the CallbackAsyncTuning and CallbackBatchTuning documentation.

bbotk 1.2.0

CRAN release: 2024-10-25

  • feat: ContextBatch and ContextAsync have a result_extra field now to access additional results passed to the instance.
  • refactor: Additional information are passed with extra to OptimInstance$assign_result().

bbotk 1.1.1

CRAN release: 2024-10-15

  • feat: The optimizers passes additional information to OptimInstance$assign_result() method.

bbotk 1.1.0

CRAN release: 2024-09-09

  • docs: Move vignette to mlr3book.
  • feat: Add hypervolume stagnation terminator trm("stagnation_hypervolume").
  • feat Add local search optimizer opt("local_search").
  • refactor: Remove unused fields from callbacks.
  • fix: Add "on_optimization_end_batch" stage to CallbackBatch.

bbotk 1.0.1

CRAN release: 2024-07-24

  • refactor: extra columns in results.

bbotk 1.0.0

CRAN release: 2024-06-28

  • feat: Introduce asynchronous optimization with the OptimizerAsync and OptimInstanceAsync classes.
  • BREAKING CHANGE: The Optimizer class is OptimizerBatch now.
  • BREAKING CHANGE: The OptimInstance class and subclasses are OptimInstanceBatch* now.
  • BREAKING CHANGE: The CallbackOptimization class is CallbackBatch now.
  • BREAKING CHANGE: The ContextOptimization class is ContextBatch now.
  • BREAKING CHANGE: Remove ArchiveBest class and keep_evals parameter from OptimInstance.

bbotk 0.8.0

CRAN release: 2024-02-29

  • fix: OptimizerIrace failed with logical parameters and dependencies.
  • refactor: Optimize the runtime of archive$best() method and add ties method.
  • compatibility: Work with new paradox version 1.0.0

bbotk 0.7.3

CRAN release: 2023-11-13

  • fix: OptimInstance$print() errored when the search space was empty.

bbotk 0.7.2

CRAN release: 2022-12-08

  • fix: Standalone Tuner and FSelector were rejected by ContextBatch.

bbotk 0.7.1

CRAN release: 2022-11-30

  • feat: Data unrelated to a specific point evaluation can be written to Archive$data_extra.

bbotk 0.7.0

CRAN release: 2022-11-05

  • fix: Terminator$format(with_params = TRUE) printed an empty list when no parameter was set.
  • refactor: OptimizerIrace automatically added the instances parameter to Objective$constants. From now on, the instances parameter can be also set manually.
  • BREAKING CHANGE: branin(xs) is now branin(x1, x2, noise) and branin_wu(x1, x2, fidelity).
  • feat: Add ObjectiveRFunMany that can evaluate a list of configurations with a user supplied function.
  • fix: If all configurations were missing a parameter, ObjectiveRFunDt$eval_many() did not create a column with NA for the missing parameter.
  • refactor: The default of digits in OptimizerIrace is 15 now to avoid rounding errors.
  • refactor: The bounds of double parameters were processed with only 4 decimal places in OptimizerIrace. By default, the bounds of double parameters are represented with 15 decimal places now. The digits parameter of OptimizerIrace also changes number of decimal places of the bounds now.

bbotk 0.6.0

CRAN release: 2022-10-25

  • fix: OptimizerIrace did not work with parameters with multiple dependencies.
  • feat: Add new callback that backups the archive to disk to mlr_callbacks.
  • feat: Create custom callbacks with the callback_batch() function.

bbotk 0.5.4

CRAN release: 2022-08-25

  • feat: Add OptimizerFocusSearch that performs a focusing random search.

bbotk 0.5.3

CRAN release: 2022-05-04

  • feat: Optimizer and Terminator objects have the field $id now.

bbotk 0.5.2

CRAN release: 2022-04-04

  • refactor: The $print() method of OptimInstance omits unnecessary columns now.
  • fix: The $clear() method of OptimInstance raised an error.
  • fix: The $clear() method of Archive missed to reset the $start_time field.
  • feat: Optimizer and Terminator objects have the optional field $label now.
  • feat: as.data.table() functions for objects of class Dictionary have been extended with additional columns.
  • feat: Add a as.data.table.DictionaryTerminator() function.

bbotk 0.5.1

CRAN release: 2022-02-25

  • fix: The return of the $.status() method of TerminatorRunTime and TerminatorClockTime was not in a consistent unit. The return is in seconds from now on.
  • fix: The number of evaluations was recorded as 0 in the log messages when the search space was empty.
  • feat: Add a as.data.table.DictionaryOptimizer() function.
  • feat: New $help() method which opens the manual page of an Optimizer.

bbotk 0.5.0

CRAN release: 2022-01-19

  • feat: Add $nds_selection() method to Archive.
  • feat: New Codomain class that allows extra parameters.
  • refactor: Objective values were automatically named. From now on, only unnamed returns of ObjectiveRFun are named.
  • fix: OptimInstance, Archive and Objective objects were not cloned properly.
  • refactor: The fields $param_classes, $properties and $packages of Optimizer objects are read-only now.
  • feat: The branin() function is exported now.

bbotk 0.4.0

CRAN release: 2021-09-13

  • feat: The search space and domain can now be empty.
  • feat: The budget of TerminatorEvals can now be changed depending on the dimension of the search space with the parameter k.
  • feat: Add bb_optimize() function.
  • feat: Add OptimizerIrace which calls irace::irace from the irace package.

bbotk 0.3.2

CRAN release: 2021-03-18

  • refactor: Internal changes.

bbotk 0.3.1

CRAN release: 2021-03-12

  • feat: Add $clear() method to OptimInstance to reset the instance.
  • refactor: Prettier $print() methods.
  • feat: Assertions on overlapping and reserved names in domain and codomain.

bbotk 0.3.0

CRAN release: 2021-01-23

  • feat: The check of points and results can now be disables with the check_values flag in OptimInstance, OptimInstanceSingleCrit, OptimInstanceMultiCrit, ObjectiveRFun and ObjectiveRFunDt.
  • refactor: The data.table within the Archive can now be accessed with $data.
  • refactor: The m parameter of Archive$best() is renamed to batch.
  • feat: New ArchiveBest class which only stores best scoring evaluation instead of all evaluations
  • refactor: The runtime is reduced when ObjectiveRFunDt is used with a domain without trafo.
  • fix: Add support for ParamUty in OptimizerDesignPoints.
  • feat: The start points for OptimizerCmaes and OptimizerNloptr can now be randomly created or from center of the search space.
  • feat: The $optimize() method supports progress bars via the package progressr.

bbotk 0.2.2

CRAN release: 2020-10-08

  • refactor: Remove dependency on orphaned package bibtex.
  • feat: Add OptimizerCmaes which calls adagio::pureCMAES from the adagio package.

bbotk 0.2.1

CRAN release: 2020-09-05

  • refactor: Compact in-memory representation of R6 objects to save space when saving mlr3 objects via saveRDS(), serialize() etc.
  • refactor: Warning and error messages when upstream package of Optimizer is not installed.

bbotk 0.2

  • First version of the Black-Box Optimization Toolkit