Only import type hint packages for type checking. Avoids circular imports

Use annotations from the __future__ package to avoid having to quote
type hints. This import will not be required after Python 3.11

src/utils/config.py

@@ -1,15 +1,19 @@
 # System Packages
+from __future__ import annotations  # to avoid quoting type hints
 from enum import Enum
 from dataclasses import dataclass
 from pathlib import Path
+from typing import TYPE_CHECKING
 
 # External Packages
 import torch
 
 # Internal Packages
-from src.utils.rawconfig import ConversationProcessorConfig, Entry
+if TYPE_CHECKING:
-from src.search_filter.base_filter import BaseFilter
+    from sentence_transformers import CrossEncoder
-from src.utils.models import BaseEncoder
+    from src.search_filter.base_filter import BaseFilter
+    from src.utils.models import BaseEncoder
+    from src.utils.rawconfig import ConversationProcessorConfig, Entry
 
 
 class SearchType(str, Enum):
@@ -25,7 +29,7 @@ class ProcessorType(str, Enum):
 
 
 class TextSearchModel():
-    def __init__(self, entries: list[Entry], corpus_embeddings: torch.Tensor, bi_encoder: BaseEncoder, cross_encoder, filters: list[BaseFilter], top_k):
+    def __init__(self, entries: list[Entry], corpus_embeddings: torch.Tensor, bi_encoder: BaseEncoder, cross_encoder: CrossEncoder, filters: list[BaseFilter], top_k):
         self.entries = entries
         self.corpus_embeddings = corpus_embeddings
         self.bi_encoder = bi_encoder

src/utils/helpers.py

@@ -1,17 +1,18 @@
 # Standard Packages
-from pathlib import Path
+from __future__ import annotations  # to avoid quoting type hints
-from importlib import import_module
-import sys
-from os.path import join
-from collections import OrderedDict
-from typing import Optional, Union
 import logging
+import sys
+from collections import OrderedDict
+from importlib import import_module
+from os.path import join
+from pathlib import Path
+from typing import Optional, Union, TYPE_CHECKING
 
-# External Packages
+if TYPE_CHECKING:
-from sentence_transformers import CrossEncoder
+    # External Packages
-
+    from sentence_transformers import CrossEncoder
-# Internal Packages
+    # Internal Packages
-from src.utils.models import BaseEncoder
+    from src.utils.models import BaseEncoder
 
 
 def is_none_or_empty(item):