v3.7.0: Trained pipelines using Curated Transformers and support for Python 3.12

This release drops support for Python 3.6 and adds support for Python 3.12.

✨ New features and improvements

• Add support for Python 3.12 (#12979).
• Use the new library Weasel for spaCy projects functionality (#12769).
  • All spacy project commands should run as before, just now they're using Weasel under the hood.
  • ⚠️ Remote storage is not yet supported for Python 3.12. Use Python 3.11 or earlier for remote storage.
• Extend to Thinc v8.2 (#12897).
• Extend transformers extra to spacy-transformers v1.3 (#13025).
• Support registered vectors (#12492).
• Add --spans-key option for CLI evaluation with spacy benchmark accuracy (#12981).
• Load the CLI module lazily for spacy.info (#12962).
• Add type stubs for spacy.training.example (#12801).
• Warn for unsupported pattern keys in dependency matcher (#12928).
• Language.replace_listeners: Pass the replaced listener and the tok2vec pipe to the callback in order to support spacy-curated-transformers (#12785).
• Always use tqdm with disable=None to disable output in non-interactive environments (#12979).
• Language updates:
  • Add left and right pointing angle brackets as punctuation to ancient Greek (#12829).
  • Update example sentences for Turkish (#12895).
• Package setup updates:
  • Update NumPy build constraints for NumPy 1.25+ (#12839). For Python 3.9+, it is no longer necessary to set build constraints while building binary wheels.
  • Refactor Cython profiling in order to disable profiling for Python 3.12 in the package setup, since Cython does not currently support profiling for Python 3.12 (#12979).

📦 Trained pipelines updates

The transformer-based trf pipelines have been updated to use our new Curated Transformers library through the Thinc model wrappers and pipeline component from spaCy Curated Transformers.

⚠️ Backwards incompatibilities

• Drop support for Python 3.6.
• Drop mypy checks for Python 3.7.
• Remove ray extra.
• spacy project has a few backwards incompatibilities due to the transition to the standalone library Weasel, which is not as tightly coupled to spaCy. Weasel produces warnings when it detects older spaCy-specific settings in your environment or project config.
  • Support for the spacy_version configuration key has been dropped.
  • Support for the check_requirements configuration key has been dropped due to the deprecation of pkg_resources.
  • The SPACY_CONFIG_OVERRIDES environment variable is no longer checked. You can set configuration overrides using WEASEL_CONFIG_OVERRIDES.
  • Support for SPACY_PROJECT_USE_GIT_VERSION environment variable has been dropped.
  • Error codes are now Weasel-specific and do not follow spaCy error codes.

📖 Documentation and examples

• New and updated documentation for large language models and spaCy Curated Transformers.
• Various documentation corrections and updates.
• New additions to the spaCy Universe:
  • Hobbit spaCy: NLP for Middle Earth
  • rolegal: a spaCy Package for Noisy Romanian Legal Document Processing

👥 Contributors

@adrianeboyd, @bdura, @connorbrinton, @danieldk, @davidberenstein1957, @denizcodeyaa, @eltociear, @evornov, @honnibal, @ines, @jmyerston, @koaning, @magdaaniol, @pdhall99, @ringohoffman, @rmitsch, @senisioi, @shadeMe, @svlandeg, @vinbo8, @wjbmattingly