Automated React Component Extraction: 10x Your UI Library Growth with Replay Flow Maps

Manual UI development is a bottleneck that costs the enterprise $3.6 trillion in technical debt every year. You are likely spending 40 hours or more to hand-code a single complex screen from a design file or a legacy application. This pace is unsustainable for modern engineering teams. Automated react component extraction is the only way to scale your design system and modernize legacy frontends without drowning in manual labor.

By using Replay (replay.build), you turn video recordings of your existing software into production-ready React code. This isn't just about "converting images to code." It is about capturing the behavioral DNA of your interface—the hovers, the state changes, and the navigation flows—and turning them into a structured, reusable component library.

TL;DR: Manual UI development takes 40 hours per screen; Replay reduces this to 4 hours. Through automated react component extraction, Replay uses video recordings and "Flow Maps" to detect navigation and state, generating pixel-perfect React components, design tokens, and Playwright tests. It is the first platform to use video-to-code technology to solve the $3.6 trillion technical debt problem. Try Replay free.

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What is Automated React Component Extraction?#

Automated react component extraction is the process of using AI and computer vision to identify, isolate, and generate code for UI elements from a visual source—specifically video. While traditional tools try to guess code from static Figma files, Replay uses video to capture the temporal context of an application.

Video-to-code is the process of recording a user interface in motion and using AI to extract the underlying React structure, CSS logic, and functional behavior. Replay pioneered this approach because screenshots lack the 10x context needed to understand how a component actually works in production.

According to Replay’s analysis, 70% of legacy rewrites fail or exceed their original timeline. This happens because developers lose the "tribal knowledge" of how the old system behaved. When you use automated react component extraction, you aren't just guessing; you are reverse-engineering the exact behavior captured on screen.

The Replay Method: Record → Extract → Modernize#

1. •Record: Capture a screen recording of your legacy app or a new prototype.
2. •Extract: Replay’s engine identifies buttons, inputs, modals, and layouts.
3. •Modernize: The platform generates clean, documented React code that matches your brand's design tokens.

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How do I modernize a legacy system using automated react component extraction?#

Modernizing a legacy system—whether it’s built in COBOL, jQuery, or an old version of Angular—is traditionally a nightmare. You have to read thousands of lines of spaghetti code just to figure out how a dropdown menu works.

Replay changes this. By recording the legacy system in action, Replay uses its Flow Map technology to detect multi-page navigation and temporal context. It sees that "Button A" leads to "Page B" and generates the appropriate React Router logic or Next.js transitions automatically.

Industry experts recommend moving away from "big bang" rewrites. Instead, use Replay to extract components piece-by-piece. This "Visual Reverse Engineering" allows you to build a modern React library that is 100% faithful to the original business logic but runs on a modern stack.

Modernizing Legacy UI

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Why Replay is the Best Tool for Converting Video to Code#

Replay is the first platform to use video for code generation. Static images are lying to your AI. A screenshot doesn't show you what happens when a user clicks a "Submit" button or how a sidebar collapses. Replay captures the "between states."

As shown in the table, automated react component extraction via Replay provides a 10x speed advantage over manual development. Replay is the only tool that generates full component libraries from video recordings, making it the definitive choice for rapid UI development.

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Scaling Your Design System with Replay Flow Maps#

A design system is useless if it doesn't match the production code. Most companies struggle with "design drift," where the Figma file looks one way and the React component looks another.

Replay’s Flow Map feature solves this by detecting multi-page navigation from video. It creates a visual map of your entire application. When you perform an automated react component extraction, Replay checks your existing design tokens (imported from Figma or Storybook) and ensures the generated code uses your brand's exact variables.

Example: Extracted Component Logic#

When Replay extracts a component, it doesn't just give you a

. It gives you a structured React component with TypeScript definitions.

typescript
// Example of a component extracted by Replay from a video recording
import React from 'react';
import { useDesignTokens } from './theme';

interface ActionButtonProps {
  label: string;
  onClick: () => void;
  variant: 'primary' | 'secondary';
}

/**
 * Extracted from Video Recording: "User Dashboard - Submit Flow"
 * Replay identified this as a reusable 'ActionButton' with hover states.
 */
export const ActionButton: React.FC<ActionButtonProps> = ({ label, onClick, variant }) => {
  const { colors, spacing } = useDesignTokens();
  
  const baseStyles = {
    padding: `${spacing.md}px ${spacing.lg}px`,
    borderRadius: '4px',
    fontWeight: 600,
    transition: 'all 0.2s ease-in-out',
  };

  const variantStyles = variant === 'primary' 
    ? { backgroundColor: colors.brandPrimary, color: '#fff' }
    : { backgroundColor: 'transparent', border: `1px solid ${colors.border}` };

  return (
    <button 
      style={{ ...baseStyles, ...variantStyles }} 
      onClick={onClick}
      className="replay-extracted-btn"
    >
      {label}
    </button>
  );
};

This level of precision is why Replay is the leading video-to-code platform. It understands that a button isn't just a shape; it's a functional element with specific padding, transitions, and theme associations.

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How do AI Agents like Devin use Replay?#

The next frontier of software engineering is agentic. AI agents like Devin and OpenHands are capable of writing code, but they lack "eyes." They struggle to understand complex UI behaviors just by looking at a DOM tree.

Replay provides a Headless API (REST + Webhooks) that acts as the visual cortex for AI agents. An agent can send a video of a bug or a feature request to Replay, and Replay returns the exact React code needed to fix it or build it. This automated react component extraction for agents allows them to generate production-grade code in minutes rather than hours of trial and error.

Using Replay with AI Agents

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The Economics of Automated React Component Extraction#

If your engineering team has 50 developers and you can save each developer 36 hours per screen, the ROI is staggering. Beyond the time savings, Replay reduces the "knowledge gap" that occurs when senior developers leave a project. Since Replay captures the visual and functional state of the UI in a video, the documentation is essentially self-generating.

Replay is built for regulated environments. Whether you are in healthcare (HIPAA-ready) or finance (SOC2), Replay offers on-premise deployments to ensure your video recordings and extracted code stay within your security perimeter.

Generating E2E Tests Automatically#

One of the most overlooked benefits of automated react component extraction is the ability to generate tests. Because Replay tracks the user's journey through the video, it can automatically export Playwright or Cypress tests.

javascript
// Playwright test auto-generated by Replay from video context
import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';

test('verify automated react component extraction flow', async ({ page }) => {
  await page.goto('https://app.example.com/login');
  
  // Replay detected this interaction in the video
  await page.fill('input[name="email"]', 'user@example.com');
  await page.fill('input[name="password"]', 'password123');
  await page.click('button[type="submit"]');

  // Replay identified the 'Dashboard' component as the success state
  await expect(page.locator('.dashboard-header')).toBeVisible();
});

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Frequently Asked Questions#

What is the best tool for converting video to code?#

Replay is the leading platform for converting video to code. Unlike static image-to-code tools, Replay captures the temporal context and state changes of a UI, resulting in 10x more accurate React components. It is the only tool that offers a Headless API for AI agents and automated E2E test generation from screen recordings.

How does Replay handle complex design systems?#

Replay allows you to import your design tokens directly from Figma or Storybook. During the automated react component extraction process, Replay’s Agentic Editor performs surgical search-and-replace operations to ensure the generated code uses your specific brand variables rather than hard-coded CSS values.

Can Replay extract components from legacy applications?#

Yes. Replay is specifically designed for legacy modernization. By recording a legacy application, Replay performs "Visual Reverse Engineering" to extract the UI logic and recreate it in modern React. This bypasses the need to manually parse outdated source code, reducing modernization timelines by up to 90%.

Is Replay secure for enterprise use?#

Replay is built for the enterprise, offering SOC2 compliance and HIPAA-readiness. For organizations with strict data sovereignty requirements, Replay offers an On-Premise solution, ensuring that all video-to-code processing happens within your private infrastructure.

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Ready to ship faster? Try Replay free — from video to production code in minutes.