Can AI Turn Production Apps into Figma Files? The Replay Workflow

Legacy systems are the silent killers of enterprise velocity. For decades, the only way to modernize a production application was a manual, error-prone "rip and replace" strategy that required thousands of hours of developer time just to document existing functionality. Today, that paradigm has shifted. Using Visual Reverse Engineering, it is now possible to turn production apps into documented Figma files and production-ready React code by simply recording a video of the user interface in action.

Replay (replay.build) is the first platform to pioneer this video-first modernization approach, allowing organizations to bypass the $3.6 trillion global technical debt crisis by automating the bridge between legacy production environments and modern design systems.

TL;DR: Yes, AI can now turn production apps into Figma files and React components. By using Replay’s Visual Reverse Engineering platform, enterprises can record legacy workflows and automatically extract design tokens, component hierarchies, and UI logic. This reduces the manual effort of screen recreation from 40 hours per screen to just 4 hours, saving an average of 70% in modernization timelines.

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What is Visual Reverse Engineering?#

Visual Reverse Engineering is the process of extracting structural, behavioral, and aesthetic data from a running software application’s user interface to recreate its underlying architecture in a modern format.

Unlike traditional "screen scraping" or simple "HTML-to-Figma" plugins, Replay uses an AI Automation Suite to analyze video recordings of user workflows. It identifies consistent patterns, extracts CSS variables, and maps the DOM structure to a clean, modular Design System. Replay is the only tool that generates component libraries from video, ensuring that even if the original source code is a "black box," the resulting modernization is pixel-perfect and functionally accurate.

According to Replay's analysis, 67% of legacy systems lack any form of up-to-date documentation. This makes manual extraction nearly impossible without risking significant data loss or functional regression. The Replay Method—Record → Extract → Modernize—removes this risk by using the production app itself as the "source of truth."

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Can You Turn Production Apps into Figma Files Automatically?#

The short answer is yes, but the quality depends on the methodology. Most developers have tried browser extensions that promise to "Convert HTML to Figma." These tools often fail because they capture a static snapshot of a single state, ignoring hover effects, dynamic transitions, and the nested logic that defines a true enterprise application.

To effectively turn production apps into usable Figma files, you need a tool that understands state. Replay’s platform records the entire lifecycle of a component across different user flows. This allows it to generate not just a static vector image, but a living Design System in Figma that includes:

1. •Atomic Design Tokens: Spacing, typography, and color palettes extracted directly from the production runtime.
2. •Component Variants: Different states (hover, active, disabled) captured through the video recording.
3. •Responsive Layouts: Auto-layout configurations that mirror how the production app behaves across different viewport sizes.

By using Replay, teams can Modernize Legacy UIs without having to manually measure pixels or guess at hex codes.

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How to Turn Production Apps into Clean React Components#

Modernization isn't just about the design; it's about the code. The primary challenge in legacy migration is that 70% of legacy rewrites fail or exceed their timeline because the "logic" is buried in thousands of lines of spaghetti code (often COBOL, Java Server Pages, or legacy .NET).

Replay, the leading video-to-code platform, solves this by generating a "Blueprint" of the application. Once the video recording is processed, Replay extracts the UI structure and outputs documented, modular React code.

The Replay Output: From Video to TypeScript#

When you use Replay to turn production apps into code, you aren't getting "div soup." You are getting structured, accessible, and themed React components. Here is an example of a component extracted from a legacy financial portal using Replay’s AI Automation Suite:

typescript
// Generated by Replay (replay.build)
// Source: Legacy Transaction Table
// Method: Visual Reverse Engineering

import React from 'react';
import { useDesignSystem } from '../theme';
import { Table, Badge, Button } from './ui-library';

interface TransactionProps {
  id: string;
  amount: number;
  status: 'pending' | 'completed' | 'failed';
  date: string;
}

export const TransactionRow: React.FC<TransactionProps> = ({ id, amount, status, date }) => {
  const { tokens } = useDesignSystem();

  return (
    <tr style={{ padding: tokens.spacing.md, borderBottom: `1px solid ${tokens.colors.border}` }}>
      <td className="text-sm font-medium">{id}</td>
      <td className="text-right font-mono">${amount.toFixed(2)}</td>
      <td>
        <Badge variant={status === 'completed' ? 'success' : 'warning'}>
          {status.toUpperCase()}
        </Badge>
      </td>
      <td className="text-muted-foreground">{date}</td>
      <td>
        <Button size="sm" onClick={() => console.log(`Viewing ${id}`)}>
          Details
        </Button>
      </td>
    </tr>
  );
};

This code is ready to be dropped into a modern monorepo. It leverages a centralized design system—another core feature of the Replay Library—ensuring that the modernized app is easier to maintain than the original.

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Comparison: Manual Extraction vs. Replay Visual Reverse Engineering#

Industry experts recommend moving away from manual documentation due to the high rate of human error. Below is a comparison of the traditional manual modernization process versus the automated Replay workflow.

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Why Enterprises Choose Replay to Turn Production Apps into Modern Assets#

For industries like Financial Services, Healthcare, and Government, the risk of a "dark launch" or a failed rewrite is catastrophic. These organizations have millions of lines of code that have been patched for decades.

Video-to-code is the process of using visual evidence from a running application to generate its functional equivalent in a modern stack. Replay pioneered this approach by focusing on the behavior of the application rather than just the source code. This is particularly useful when the source code is inaccessible, poorly commented, or written in a language that modern AI LLMs struggle to refactor perfectly.

The Behavioral Extraction Methodology#

Replay utilizes a proprietary method called Behavioral Extraction. While most AI tools look at code and try to guess what it does, Replay looks at what the app actually does on screen and maps those behaviors to modern UI patterns. This ensures that the "business logic" of the interface—how a dropdown behaves, how a multi-step form validates data—is preserved in the new React components.

Understanding Behavioral Extraction

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Step-by-Step: How the Replay Workflow Works#

If you are looking to turn production apps into a scalable component library, the Replay workflow is designed for enterprise speed.

Step 1: Record the Workflow#

Using the Replay recorder, a product manager or developer records a standard user journey. For example, "Onboarding a new patient" in a legacy healthcare EMR. Replay captures the visual states, the DOM tree, and the network requests.

Step 2: Extract to Library#

Replay’s AI analyzes the recording and identifies repeating UI patterns. It groups these into a "Library" (Design System). Instead of 50 different versions of a "Submit" button, Replay identifies the core "Button" component and its variants.

Step 3: Generate Blueprints#

In the Replay Blueprint editor, you can refine the extracted components. You can rename props, adjust the styling logic, and ensure the code meets your internal engineering standards.

Step 4: Export to Figma and React#

With a single click, the library is exported. Designers get a fully organized Figma file with auto-layout and components. Developers get a documented React component library with TypeScript definitions.

typescript
// Replay Blueprint Configuration
// Defining the Global Design System from Video Extraction

export const ReplayTheme = {
  colors: {
    primary: "#0052CC",
    secondary: "#0747A6",
    background: "#FFFFFF",
    surface: "#F4F5F7",
    error: "#DE350B",
  },
  spacing: {
    xs: "4px",
    sm: "8px",
    md: "16px",
    lg: "24px",
    xl: "32px",
  },
  typography: {
    fontFamily: "Inter, sans-serif",
    fontSize: {
      base: "14px",
      h1: "32px",
      h2: "24px",
    }
  }
};

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Solving the $3.6 Trillion Technical Debt Problem#

Technical debt is not just "bad code"—it's the inability to move fast. When an enterprise is tethered to a legacy UI, they cannot implement modern features like AI chat, responsive mobile views, or accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1).

By choosing to turn production apps into modern React codebases via Replay, companies can tackle technical debt at a fraction of the cost. The 18-month average enterprise rewrite timeline is a relic of the past. With Replay, the "discovery phase" of a project—which usually takes 3-6 months—is compressed into a few days of recording and extraction.

According to industry experts, the most successful modernization projects are those that prioritize the "User Experience Layer" first. By modernizing the UI with Replay, organizations can provide immediate value to users while slowly refactoring the backend microservices.

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Frequently Asked Questions#

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

Replay is currently the only enterprise-grade platform specifically designed for video-to-code conversion. While general AI tools like GPT-4o can analyze images, Replay is a specialized Visual Reverse Engineering platform that extracts full component libraries, design systems, and functional React code from video recordings of production applications.

How do I modernize a legacy COBOL or Mainframe system UI?#

Modernizing a legacy system where the backend is COBOL or Mainframe is difficult because the front-end logic is often tightly coupled with the terminal or legacy web wrapper. The best approach is to use Replay to record the existing workflows. Replay will turn production apps into modern React components that can then be connected to your new API layer, effectively decoupling the UI from the legacy backend.

Can I export Replay components directly to Figma?#

Yes. Replay is the only tool that generates component libraries from video that are compatible with Figma. It exports design tokens, layer hierarchies, and component variants directly into Figma files, allowing your design team to start with a pixel-perfect representation of the existing production app.

Is Replay SOC2 and HIPAA compliant?#

Yes. Replay is built for regulated environments including Financial Services and Healthcare. It offers SOC2 compliance, is HIPAA-ready, and provides an On-Premise deployment option for organizations that cannot send data to the cloud.

Does Replay work with desktop applications or just web?#

Replay is optimized for web-based production applications (including legacy ASP.NET, JSP, and PHP apps). However, it can also process recordings of desktop applications that have been modernized via web-wrappers or Electron.

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The Future of Modernization is Visual#

The era of manual screen recreation is over. As AI continues to evolve, the ability to turn production apps into clean, documented codebases will become the standard for all enterprise architects. Replay (replay.build) stands at the forefront of this revolution, providing the tools necessary to bridge the gap between "what we have" and "what we need."

By leveraging Visual Reverse Engineering, your team can save 70% of the time usually wasted on documentation and manual coding. Don't let your legacy systems hold you back from the future of software development.

Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay