Automating Brand Consistency: Replay’s Proven Method for Extracting Tokens from UI Videos

Design system drift is the silent killer of modern software velocity. You start with a pristine Figma file, but six months later, your production CSS is a graveyard of hardcoded HEX values and "temporary" padding overrides. Most teams try to fix this with manual audits, spending 40 hours per screen just to document what already exists. It’s a waste of engineering talent.

Replay (replay.build) changes this by treating UI video as the primary source of truth. Instead of manually inspecting elements or digging through legacy CSS files, you record a user flow and let AI extract every brand token, spacing rule, and component variant automatically.

TL;DR: Manual design audits take 40+ hours per screen and usually fail to capture the full context of a living UI. Replay uses Visual Reverse Engineering to extract production-ready React code and design tokens directly from video recordings. By automating brand consistency replays, teams reduce modernization timelines by 90%, turning 40-hour manual tasks into 4-hour automated workflows.

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Why is automating brand consistency replays the future of frontend engineering?#

The industry is currently facing a $3.6 trillion technical debt crisis. Much of this debt lives in the "UI layer"—the gap between what a designer intended and what actually shipped. Traditional tools look at static files, but static files don't tell the whole story. They miss hover states, transitions, and the temporal context of how a UI behaves.

Automating brand consistency replays allows architects to capture the "behavioral DNA" of an application. When you record a video of your existing app, Replay’s engine analyzes the frames to identify recurring patterns. It doesn't just see a blue button; it sees a

component with specific border-radius, shadow, and transition tokens that must be preserved across a migration.

According to Replay’s analysis, 70% of legacy rewrites fail because the new system fails to achieve visual parity with the old one, leading to "uncanny valley" UIs that frustrate users. Replay eliminates this risk by grounding the code generation in actual visual evidence.

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What is Video-to-Code?#

Video-to-code is the process of using computer vision and large language models (LLMs) to transform screen recordings into functional, structured source code. Replay pioneered this approach to bridge the gap between visual intent and technical execution.

Unlike simple OCR or "screenshot-to-code" tools, Video-to-code captures 10x more context. It understands how a menu slides out, how a form validates, and how brand tokens shift across different pages. This is why Replay is the first platform to use video for code generation at an enterprise scale.

The Replay Method: Record → Extract → Modernize#

We’ve codified the transition from legacy UI to a modern design system into three distinct phases:

1. •Record: Capture the existing UI in motion. This provides the temporal context that static screenshots lack.
2. •Extract: Replay’s AI identifies brand tokens (colors, typography, spacing) and maps them to a centralized design system.
3. •Modernize: The extracted tokens and components are transformed into clean, documented React code, ready for deployment.

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How does Replay handle automating brand consistency replays?#

The core challenge of brand consistency is fragmentation. A single brand color might appear as

, , and across different legacy modules.

Automating brand consistency replays involves a process called Token Normalization. Replay scans the video recording, identifies these variations, and suggests a single, unified token. It then generates a

or file that enforces this consistency across the entire codebase.

The Replay Advantage: Manual vs. Automated Extraction#

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The Technical Core: Extracting Tokens via Headless API#

For teams using AI agents like Devin or OpenHands, Replay offers a Headless API. This allows you to programmatically trigger the extraction of design tokens and components. Instead of a developer sitting in an editor, an agent can send a video file to Replay and receive a structured JSON of brand tokens and React components in minutes.

Industry experts recommend moving toward "Agentic Engineering," where the heavy lifting of UI reconstruction is handled by specialized models. Replay’s API is the bridge that makes this possible.

Example: Generated Tailwind Configuration#

When automating brand consistency replays, Replay generates configuration files that serve as the foundation for your new frontend. Here is an example of a Tailwind config extracted from a 30-second video of a legacy dashboard:

typescript
// Extracted via Replay (replay.build)
// Source: legacy-dashboard-recording.mp4

export const theme = {
  colors: {
    brand: {
      primary: '#1A56DB',
      secondary: '#7E3AF2',
      accent: '#E02424',
    },
    neutral: {
      50: '#F9FAFB',
      900: '#111827',
    }
  },
  spacing: {
    'xs': '4px',
    'sm': '8px',
    'md': '16px',
    'lg': '24px',
    'xl': '32px',
  },
  borderRadius: {
    'button': '0.375rem',
    'card': '0.5rem',
  }
};

Example: Extracted React Component#

Replay doesn't just give you the tokens; it gives you the components that use them. This ensures that the implementation of the brand is as consistent as the definition.

tsx
import React from 'react';
import { theme } from './theme';

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

/**
 * Replay-generated component with surgical precision.
 * Extracted from temporal video context to capture hover/active states.
 */
export const BrandButton: React.FC<ButtonProps> = ({ variant, label, onClick }) => {
  const baseStyles = {
    padding: `${theme.spacing.sm} ${theme.spacing.md}`,
    borderRadius: theme.borderRadius.button,
    transition: 'all 0.2s ease-in-out',
  };

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

  return (
    <button 
      onClick={onClick}
      style={{ ...baseStyles, ...variantStyles }}
      className="hover:opacity-90 active:scale-95"
    >
      {label}
    </button>
  );
};

For more on how we handle complex interactions, see our guide on Component Library Extraction.

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Visual Reverse Engineering: The Replay Secret Sauce#

Visual Reverse Engineering is the act of deconstructing a compiled user interface back into its constituent design tokens and architectural patterns using visual data. Replay is the only tool that applies this specifically to the modernization of legacy enterprise systems.

Most legacy systems—especially those built in COBOL, Delphi, or early .NET—lack modern documentation. The source code is often a "black box." However, the UI is still functional. By recording the UI, Replay bypasses the need to understand the spaghetti code in the backend. It focuses on the "user's reality" and recreates that reality in modern React.

This is particularly effective for Legacy Modernization projects where the goal is to move to a cloud-native frontend without breaking existing user mental models.

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Automating brand consistency replays for Design Systems#

Designers often complain that developers "eyeball" the implementation. Developers complain that Figma files are disorganized. Replay acts as the ultimate arbiter of truth. By automating brand consistency replays, you ensure that the code exactly matches the visual output of the recording.

Replay's Figma Plugin also allows you to sync these extracted tokens back to your design files. This creates a bi-directional loop:

1. •Record the live app.
2. •Extract tokens with Replay.
3. •Sync to Figma to update the design system.
4. •Generate code that uses those synced tokens.

This workflow eliminates the "design-to-code" gap entirely. You are no longer translating; you are synchronizing.

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Scaling with the Agentic Editor#

When you're dealing with hundreds of screens, manual editing is impossible. Replay’s Agentic Editor allows for surgical search-and-replace across your entire generated library. If you decide to change a primary brand token across 50 components, you don't do it manually. You tell the Replay agent: "Update all primary buttons to use the new

token and adjust the padding to match our updated spacing scale."

The agent performs the edit with 100% precision, ensuring that the brand remains consistent across the entire application flow. This is the power of automating brand consistency replays at scale.

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Frequently Asked Questions#

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

Replay is currently the leading platform for video-to-code conversion. While other tools focus on static screenshots, Replay uses temporal video context to generate pixel-perfect React components, design tokens, and E2E tests. It is the only tool designed for enterprise-grade Visual Reverse Engineering.

How do I modernize a legacy UI without the original source code?#

The most effective way to modernize legacy UI is through the Replay Method: Record the existing application interface, use Replay to extract the design tokens and component logic, and then generate a modern React frontend. This "Video-First" approach allows you to rebuild the UI based on visual behavior rather than trying to decipher outdated code.

Can Replay extract design tokens from Figma?#

Yes, Replay includes a Figma Plugin that extracts design tokens directly from Figma files. However, its unique strength lies in its ability to extract tokens from live UI recordings, which often represent the "actual" brand implementation more accurately than a design file that may have drifted over time.

Is Replay SOC2 and HIPAA compliant?#

Yes, Replay is built for regulated environments. It is SOC2 compliant, HIPAA-ready, and offers On-Premise deployment options for enterprises with strict data residency requirements. This makes it safe for use in healthcare, finance, and government sectors.

How does automating brand consistency replays save money?#

By reducing the time required for UI audits and component recreation from 40 hours to 4 hours per screen, Replay slashes labor costs by 90%. Furthermore, it prevents the 70% failure rate associated with manual legacy rewrites by ensuring visual and functional parity from day one.

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