docs(env): describe the pytensor -> numba -> numpy chain by invariant

[frankbuckley]

Note

Drafted by an LLM-based AI tool (Claude Code/Opus 5).

Comment-only correction to environment-core.yml and this repo's environment.yml. No spec changes, no release, no downstream coordination.

Why

Refreshing vocabulary-growth's lock (dseinternational/vocabulary-growth#181) moved pymc 6.1.0 → 6.2.0 and pytensor 3.1.3 → 3.2.2. The floors already permitted that, so nothing broke — but three comments still named pytensor 3.1.x as the thing that produces the numba and numpy caps, and that is no longer what solves. This repo's own CI on main now builds against pymc 6.2.0 / pytensor 3.2.2 / numba 0.65.1.

The constraints are still correct — only the prose was stale

Verified against conda-forge metadata:

Constraint	pytensor-base 3.1.3	pytensor-base 3.2.2
→ numba	>=0.58,<=0.65.1	>=0.58,<=0.65.1 — identical
numba 0.65.1 → numpy	>=1.22.3,<2.5	unchanged
pymc-base → pytensor-base	6.1.0: >=3.1.2,<3.2	6.2.0: >=3.2.2,<3.3

The chain that justifies numba>=0.58,<=0.65.1 and numpy>=2.4.6,<2.5 survives the bump intact, so both caps stay exactly as they are. The cap also cannot be lifted yet: numba 0.66.0 exists but pytensor excludes it, and it still requires numpy <2.5.

What changed

The comments now name the invariant rather than a version, so they stop going stale on the next pytensor minor:

• numpy — pymc -> pytensor 3.x -> numba<=0.65.1 -> numpy<2.5
• numba — "every pytensor 3.x caps numba here (verified 3.1.3, 3.2.1, 3.2.2)"
• pymc — records that each pymc 6.x pins one pytensor 3.x minor, and that the floor is the minimum supported rather than what installs (6.2.0 / pytensor 3.2.2 currently)

Why the pymc floor stays at 6.1.0

This file's convention is floor-as-minimum-supported, not floor-as-installed — numpy>=2.4.6, arviz>=1.2.0 and the rest all sit below what actually solves. Raising pymc alone would break that convention, cost a four-repo coordinated rollout plus a release, and buy nothing: language-reading-predictors and us-birth-certificates carry no lock files so they always solve fresh, and vocabulary-growth's lock was just refreshed to 6.2.0. Nothing in the fleet can land on 6.1.0 today.

Why this needs no rollout or version bump

check_env_core compares YAML-parsed values and yaml.safe_load strips # comments before the specs are read, so the canonical core is byte-identical as far as dse-check-env is concerned. Confirmed by parsing both revisions: the spec dictionaries are equal, with no diff. Dependent repos need no matching change and __version__ stays at 0.8.0 — bumping would only invite a pointless re-pin in three repos.

The same three comments are also mirrored in the dependent repos' environment.yml files and are stale there too. Harmless, and worth sweeping up in whichever PR next touches those files.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code