CatBoost Cheat Sheet

CatBoost reference covering native categorical feature handling, the Pool data structure, ordered boosting, and built-in cross-validation.

2 PagesIntermediateApr 12, 2026

Basic Training

Train a classifier with native categorical support.

python

from catboost import CatBoostClassifiercat_features = ["city", "device_type"]   # column names or indicesmodel = CatBoostClassifier(    iterations=500, depth=6, learning_rate=0.05,    loss_function="Logloss", eval_metric="AUC",    cat_features=cat_features, verbose=50,)model.fit(X_train, y_train, eval_set=(X_val, y_val), early_stopping_rounds=30)preds = model.predict(X_test)proba = model.predict_proba(X_test)

Pool API

Efficient data container for training.

python

from catboost import Pooltrain_pool = Pool(X_train, label=y_train, cat_features=cat_features)val_pool = Pool(X_val, label=y_val, cat_features=cat_features)model = CatBoostClassifier(iterations=500, depth=6)model.fit(train_pool, eval_set=val_pool)model.save_model("model.cbm")

Cross-Validation

Built-in CV helper.

python

from catboost import cvparams = {"iterations": 500, "depth": 6, "loss_function": "Logloss"}cv_results = cv(train_pool, params, fold_count=5, early_stopping_rounds=30)print(cv_results["test-Logloss-mean"].min())

Key Features

What sets CatBoost apart.

cat_features- pass raw categorical columns without manual one-hot encoding
Pool- wraps features, labels, and categorical info for efficient training
ordered boosting- reduces target leakage/overfitting versus classic gradient boosting
SymmetricTree- default oblivious tree structure, fast inference
get_feature_importance()- built-in feature importance including SHAP values
grid_search() / randomized_search()- built-in hyperparameter tuning helpers

Pro Tip

Pass raw categorical columns directly via cat_features instead of one-hot or label encoding them yourself — CatBoost's ordered target statistics handle high-cardinality categoricals better and avoid leakage.

Was this cheat sheet helpful?

LightGBM Cheat Sheet

OpenCV Cheat Sheet