structboost.encode_obs_covariates

structboost.encode_obs_covariates(adata, obs_columns)

Encode obs covariates as a standardized numeric matrix.

Categorical, string, object, and boolean columns are dummy-encoded using the first observed category as reference. Numeric columns are kept as-is. The result is z-standardized.

Parameters:

• adata (AnnData) – AnnData object with obs DataFrame.

• obs_columns (list[str]) – Column names in adata.obs to encode.

Returns:

ObsCovariateEncoding with the encoded matrix and metadata.

Raises:

ValueError – If a column is missing, contains missing/non-finite values, is constant, or if the resulting design matrix is rank-deficient.

Return type:

ObsCovariateEncoding