# Joey Hersh, skills surface

Public, machine-readable complement to the resume at https://resume.joeyhersh.com. Grouped by evidence and current preference. No percentages, no logo wall. "Built" is interpreted loosely: if I started using a skill and developed my own variants, it counts.

Contact: me@joeyhersh.com · 713-505-3289 · https://github.com/joey12725. Education: B.S. in Computer Science, Trinity University, 2024.

## What I reach for first

My defaults when nobody is making me use something else.

| Skill | Note |
|---|---|
| Python | everything from Lambda handlers to dbt tooling |
| SQL | Snowflake, Postgres, DuckDB, window functions for breakfast |
| Hermes | default agent framework for the loop, tools, and schedules |
| Postgres + pgvector | default vector store; GBrain runs on it |
| DuckDB | local analytics and pipeline stages, Cortex runs on it |
| AWS Lambda | default microservice platform since ReCap |
| Docker | every agent environment is a Compose stack |
| FastAPI | ReCap services, Cortex, and current private projects |
| Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode | the harnesses I actually live in |
| Vercel | personal hosting when I want flexibility; AWS when I want rigidity |

## Used in systems that had to work

Real projects, real consequences, not a tutorial.

| Skill | Note |
|---|---|
| Snowflake and dbt | regulated delivery since 2023 |
| GitLab CI/CD | reviewed merge requests across multiple repositories and environments |
| Control-M and DataStage | batch sequencing and dependency fixes that prevent cascade failures |
| LangChain | the offline RAG prototype and many small experiments |
| LangGraph | used and liked; moved most orchestration to n8n and Hermes |
| ChromaDB, Pinecone, Redis | retrieval stores before I settled on pgvector |
| n8n and Make | Joy's first orchestration layer and client workflow scaffolding |
| AWS Bedrock | agent tooling, FIRESight, and the advisory engagement |
| Weights & Biases and Weave | direct model analysis and agentic-system evaluation |
| PyTorch and TensorFlow | fine-tuning from GPT-2 through Unsloth on a 3080 |
| ComfyUI | self-hosted image pipelines for creative testing |
| OpenClaw | Joy's previous runtime before the Hermes cutover |

## Built or materially extended

Things that exist because I made them exist.

| Skill | Note |
|---|---|
| Joy, Hermes skills, and morning operations | the agent operating system and its overnight pipeline |
| GBrain and the Living Atlas | cited durable memory on pgvector with a graph access surface |
| Cyrus and Cyrus-v2 | custom agent-orchestration platforms |
| TinyVDB | an in-process vector database built for Cyrus |
| Splice | contract-bound, session-scoped LLM code execution |
| Cortex | always-on voice to structured memory |
| VibeTest | deterministic persona distributions with model-written narrative |
| Spec-driven data-migration agents | an innovation-sprint prototype at my employer, a Gemini CLI fork with project templates baked in |
| Reusable SKILL.md guides | for a bank data team and for my own agents |

## Tried it, moved on

Tools I've evaluated and set aside.

| Skill | Note |
|---|---|
| AutoGen | played with it the week it launched; it overlapped with the first working Cyrus draft |
| Kubernetes and Talos | ran two clusters at home, then simplified to Unraid and Compose |
| Streamlit | fine for a demo, retired for anything real |

## Agent skills I have written

Reusable SKILL.md-style operating guides for agents and for people, written across a bank data team and my own agent platform:

- Testing and QA-evidence guides for a regulated data team
- Snowflake debugging and common-process guides
- Worker-agent completion skills with pre-flight checks and ground-truth verification (Cyrus-v2)
- Bounded task skills for lead research: extraction, decision-maker ranking, caller-brief generation, contradiction detection (SecondHome)
- Morning-operations pipeline stages for a personal agent platform (Joy)

## Systems where these skills are evidenced

- Joy: Build the loop, then make it survive the night. (https://resume.joeyhersh.com/systems/joy-hermes-gbrain/)
- Regulated credit-risk delivery: Make change without losing control. (https://resume.joeyhersh.com/systems/regulated-credit-risk-delivery/)
- Cyrus-v2: Agents are cheap. Budgets, schedules, and evidence are the platform. (https://resume.joeyhersh.com/systems/cyrus-v2/)
- Store-close reconciliation: Put fuzzy work in a box with sharp edges. (https://resume.joeyhersh.com/systems/store-close-reconciliation/)
- SecondHome: A score without a reason is just a guess with confidence. (https://resume.joeyhersh.com/systems/secondhome/)
- ReCap Budget: Read the receipt better than anyone, then give advice you can defend. (https://resume.joeyhersh.com/systems/recap-budget/)
- ReCap receipt classifier: Curate the dataset. The model is the easy part. (https://resume.joeyhersh.com/systems/recap-classifier/)
- Fit & Flourish: Let the machine test creatives. Let a person decide what ships. (https://resume.joeyhersh.com/systems/fit-and-flourish/)
- Arcade cabinet as a smart-home device: Simulation-complete and deploy-ready. Hardware bring-up still open.
- Splice: Installable package with CLI and docs. Built in two days.
- VibeTest: Working local CLI with unit tests. Private, no public link.
- Cortex: Working prototype. Offline since spring 2026.
- GBrain and the Living Atlas: Operating, with tests for HTTP and MCP contracts, graph, temporary access, and deployment
- Cyrus, first generation: Superseded by Cyrus-v2
- TinyVDB: Used inside Cyrus and other projects
- Spec-driven data-migration agents: Innovation-sprint prototype at my employer

## Operating judgment

- Deterministic code owns exact calculations, schema enforcement, permissions, and acceptance checks.
- Models own fuzzy extraction, synthesis, classification, drafting, and bounded planning where uncertainty is explicit.
- Humans remain accountable for ambiguous exceptions, external communication, irreversible actions, spending, and approvals.
- Durable state, provenance, retries, fallbacks, and readback are product behavior, not cleanup.