# CJ Brewer, Co-founder at Swirls AI and VP Ops at CipherStash

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CJ Brewer is speaking at Builder's Day, online on October 26, 2026. Company: Swirls AI (https://swirls.ai).
Also: VP Ops, CipherStash (https://cipherstash.com).

## The talk

Could this just be a markdown file? Declarative agents for real operations

How to take an agent from “roughly follow these instructions” to a declarative operational system with typed contracts, scoped tools, and human approval points.

Most agent workflows can begin as a Markdown file: instructions, examples, a few tools, and a desired outcome. That is useful and often the right place to start. But a business cannot run on “roughly follow these instructions.” Once an agent touches customer data, sends emails, updates systems of record, or triggers work for a team, operational builders need to answer harder questions. What inputs are allowed? What outputs are guaranteed? Which actions can the agent take? What happens when something fails? Where does a human approve?

This talk makes the case that the path from an agent prompt to an operational system is declarative. Make the agent’s inputs, outputs, tools, permissions, triggers, workflows, and approval points explicit. Then the system becomes inspectable, versionable, testable, and deployable. In engineering terms, we are bringing a familiar idea into agentic development: constrain the variable reasoning layer inside a defined contract.

We’ll walk through how an inbox-to-CRM agent evolves from a Markdown instruction into a production-ready workflow with typed inputs and outputs, deterministic tool calls, scoped authority, durable execution, and human review. The thesis: businesses will increasingly run day-to-day through agents. The teams that succeed will not treat those agents as prompts. They will treat them as declarative operational systems.

## About CJ Brewer

CJ Brewer is a systems-thinking builder. He has spent 12 years at VC-backed companies running solutions engineering teams and operations, and 15 years writing software that pulled him toward system design. He is currently VP of Operations at CipherStash and a co-founder of Swirls, where he works on agent and system infrastructure.

## See CJ live on October 26

Join CJ and the rest of the lineup online, from wherever you are. The event is online. Watch at https://builders.day/stream: a countdown until the stream link lands, then a redirect to the livestream. Every talk is also published on YouTube on October 26. Add it to your calendar: https://builders.day/builders-day.ics (iCalendar) or https://calendar.google.com/calendar/render?action=TEMPLATE&text=Builder%27s+Day+2026+%28online%29&dates=20261026T140000Z%2F20261026T203000Z&details=Builder%27s+Day+is+a+one-day+online+AI+developer+conference%2C+hosted+by+Prisma.+A+full+day+of+live+talks+from+the+people+building+the+next+era+of+software%2C+streamed+to+wherever+you+are.%0A%0AWatch+at+https%3A%2F%2Fbuilders.day%2Fstream+%28stream+link+coming+soon%3B+that+page+redirects+to+the+livestream+once+it+is+live%29.+Every+talk+is+also+published+on+YouTube+on+October+26.&location=Online%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbuilders.day%2Fstream&ctz=America%2FNew_York (Google Calendar).

## More speakers

- [Brian Douglas](https://builders.day/speakers/brian-douglas), Co-founder & CEO at Paper Compute: Dreams, Reflections, and Inceptions
- [Corey Haines](https://builders.day/speakers/corey-haines), Founder at Conversion Factory: How I went from marketer to building AI marketing tools
- [Tyler Benfield](https://builders.day/speakers/tyler-benfield), Platform Architect at Prisma: You and what army?
- [Johannes Schickling](https://builders.day/speakers/johannes-schickling), Co-founder of Prisma: Declarative Agents
- [Will Madden](https://builders.day/speakers/will-madden), Engineering Manager, ORM at Prisma: Talk to be announced
- [Shane Neubauer](https://builders.day/speakers/shane-neubauer), Product Lead at Prisma: About Our Stack: Integrated Products, Ideal for Agents
- [Boris Tane](https://builders.day/speakers/boris-tane), Chief On-Call Officer at Polylane: Talk to be announced

## Links

- All speakers: https://builders.day/speakers
- https://x.com/zcjbb
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/brewercj/
- https://github.com/calvinbrewer