Dependency Policy

Understand package requirements, SPEC-0 support cycles, extra groups, and C extension compiler flags.

This project follows the SPEC-0 rolling-window support policy adopted by the Scientific Python ecosystem (NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib, etc.).

Python Version Support

Rule	Value
Minimum supported	3 years after release
Drop date	42 months after release

Currently supported: Python ≥ 3.11 and 3.12 (both fully tested in CI). Python 3.13 will be added once it reaches its first stable patch release.

Core Dependencies

Core dependencies (numpy, matplotlib) are pinned with a lower bound only. Upper bounds are omitted to avoid conflict issues in user environments.

Package	Current Lower Bound	Released	SPEC-0 Drop Date
`numpy`	`>=1.26`	2023-06	2025-06
`matplotlib`	`>=3.8`	2023-09	2025-09

These bounds will be bumped on the next minor release of this package after the SPEC-0 support window closes — not before.

Optional Extras

Extra	Purpose	Key Packages
`dev`	Test suite	`pytest>=8.0`, `pytest-cov>=5.0`
`analysis`	Nonlinear time-series metrics	`antropy>=0.1.6`, `nolds>=0.6.1`, `scipy>=1.12`
`docs`	Documentation build	`mkdocs>=1.6`, `mkdocs-material>=9.5`
`legacy`	Frozen legacy scripts	`PyYAML>=6.0`, `scipy>=1.12`
`pydstool`	Numerical continuation	`PyDSTool` (no stable PyPI release, no pin)

pydstool has no stable PyPI release as of 2026. Install manually from source if needed. It is not part of the standard CI matrix.

C Extension Compatibility

The native C EFORK backend (hidden_attractors/native/) compiles against the active Python ABI. Platform compiler requirements are as follows:

Linux / macOS: gcc or clang with OpenMP (libomp)
Windows: gcc in PATH (e.g. via MSYS2/UCRT64); OpenMP via libgomp

Set ALLOW_NO_OPENMP=1 to build without OpenMP (single-threaded fallback). A pure-Python EFORKSolver is always available as a fallback and requires no C toolchain.