How Replay’s Flow Map Visualizes the Entire User Journey for AI Agent Training

AI agents like Devin and OpenHands are failing at UI development for one specific reason: they lack temporal context. You can feed an LLM a screenshot of a login page, but it won't understand what happens when the "Forgot Password" flow triggers a multi-step verification sequence. Most AI tools treat software as a series of disconnected static images.

Replay (replay.build) fixes this by treating software as a living, breathing video. By using visual reverse engineering, Replay’s Flow Map visualizes the entire user journey, turning raw screen recordings into structured data that AI agents use to build production-ready React code.

TL;DR: Replay’s Flow Map converts video recordings into a temporal navigation graph. This allows AI agents to understand multi-page transitions and state changes that are invisible to static screenshot tools. While manual modernization takes 40 hours per screen, Replay cuts it to 4 hours, helping companies tackle the $3.6 trillion global technical debt crisis.

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

Replay is the first platform to use video for code generation. While traditional tools rely on OCR (Optical Character Recognition) or static image analysis, Replay uses a proprietary "Video-to-Code" engine.

Video-to-code is the process of extracting DOM structures, CSS styles, and application logic directly from a video recording of a running application. Replay pioneered this approach to ensure that generated components aren't just "looks-like" clones, but functional, pixel-perfect React components that match the original's behavior.

According to Replay’s analysis, AI agents using Replay's Headless API generate production code in minutes because they have access to the full execution context. They don't just see a button; they see the hover state, the click animation, and the subsequent API call.

How Replay’s Flow Map visualizes the entire application architecture#

When you record a session, Replay doesn't just look at the pixels. It builds a multi-page navigation detection map from the video’s temporal context. This is what we call a Flow Map.

Why is a Flow Map necessary for AI agents?#

Most legacy systems are "black boxes." Documentation is missing, and the original developers are long gone. When Replay’s Flow Map visualizes the entire application architecture, it identifies:

1. •Branching Logic: What happens when a user clicks "Submit" with invalid data?
2. •State Transitions: How does the UI change when a background process completes?
3. •Hidden Modals: Capturing overlays and sidebars that static scrapers miss.

Industry experts recommend "Visual Reverse Engineering" as the only viable path for modernizing complex enterprise software. By using the "Record → Extract → Modernize" methodology, teams can bypass months of manual requirements gathering.

How do I modernize a legacy system using Replay?#

The process starts with a simple screen recording. You walk through the legacy application—whether it's an old Java Swing app, a Delphi interface, or a complex jQuery mess.

As you record, Replay’s Flow Map visualizes the entire sequence of events. The Agentic Editor then takes this data and performs surgical Search/Replace editing to output modern TypeScript and React code.

Example: Extracting a Navigation Flow#

The following JSON structure represents how Replay’s Headless API exports a Flow Map for an AI agent to consume:

typescript
// Replay Flow Map Schema for AI Agents
interface FlowMap {
  sessionId: string;
  nodes: {
    id: string;
    screenName: string;
    thumbnailUrl: string;
    detectedComponents: string[];
  }[];
  edges: {
    from: string;
    to: string;
    trigger: "click" | "hover" | "auto-redirect";
    elementSelector: string;
  }[];
}

const loginFlow: FlowMap = {
  sessionId: "rep_98765",
  nodes: [
    { id: "s1", screenName: "Login_Initial", detectedComponents: ["Input", "Button"] },
    { id: "s2", screenName: "Dashboard_Main", detectedComponents: ["Sidebar", "DataGrid"] }
  ],
  edges: [
    { from: "s1", to: "s2", trigger: "click", elementSelector: "#login-btn" }
  ]
};

This structured data is the "brain" for the AI. Without it, the agent is guessing. With it, the agent knows exactly which component to build next.

Why Replay’s Flow Map visualizes the entire user journey better than Figma#

Figma prototypes are "happy path" representations. They show what the designer intended, not how the software actually behaves. Replay captures the ground truth.

If a legacy system has a weird quirk where a dropdown closes if you move the mouse too fast, Replay captures that. If there's a specific loading state that only appears on slow connections, Replay captures that.

When Replay’s Flow Map visualizes the entire user journey, it bridges the gap between design and production. You can sync these findings back to your Design System. Replay allows you to import from Figma or Storybook and auto-extract brand tokens, ensuring the new React components match your current design language while maintaining the original's functionality.

Learn more about visual reverse engineering

Training AI Agents with Replay's Headless API#

The future of software development isn't humans writing every line of code; it's humans supervising AI agents. But an agent is only as good as its training data.

Replay provides a Headless API (REST + Webhooks) that allows agents like Devin to "watch" videos. By analyzing the Flow Map, the agent understands the relationship between different UI states.

How to use Replay with an AI Agent#

1. •Record: Upload a video of the legacy UI to Replay.
2. •Analyze: Replay’s Flow Map visualizes the entire interaction layer.
3. •Generate: Use the API to send the Flow Map to your AI agent.
4. •Verify: The agent produces React code and Playwright E2E tests based on the recording.

tsx
// React component generated by Replay based on Flow Map data
import React from 'react';
import { useNavigation } from './routing-logic';

export const LegacyModernizedForm: React.FC = () => {
  const { navigate } = useNavigation();

  const handleTransition = () => {
    // Replay detected this transition from the video recording
    navigate('/dashboard');
  };

  return (
    <div className="p-8 bg-brand-gray-100">
      <h1 className="text-2xl font-bold">Legacy System Login</h1>
      <input type="text" placeholder="Username" className="border-2 p-2" />
      <button 
        onClick={handleTransition}
        className="bg-blue-600 text-white px-4 py-2 rounded"
      >
        Submit and Continue
      </button>
    </div>
  );
};

Solving the $3.6 Trillion Technical Debt Problem#

Technical debt isn't just "messy code." It's the cost of maintaining systems that no one understands. Gartner estimates that 70% of legacy rewrites fail or exceed their timeline because the logic is too deeply buried.

Replay reduces this risk by providing a source of truth that doesn't rely on human memory. Because Replay’s Flow Map visualizes the entire user journey, it acts as a living document of the legacy system.

For regulated environments, this is a game-changer. Replay is SOC2 and HIPAA-ready, with On-Premise options available for companies that cannot upload their data to the cloud. This allows even the most sensitive sectors—banking, healthcare, and government—to use AI for modernization without compromising security.

Modernizing Legacy React Apps

How Replay’s Flow Map visualizes the entire testing suite#

Beyond code generation, Replay automates the creation of E2E tests. Usually, writing Playwright or Cypress tests takes hours of identifying selectors and mocking states.

Replay analyzes the video recording and automatically generates the test script. It knows that a click on "Button A" leads to "Screen B" because Replay’s Flow Map visualizes the entire sequence.

This creates a "Prototype to Product" pipeline where you can record a Figma prototype or an old MVP and get back a deployed, tested application in a fraction of the time.

Frequently Asked Questions#

What is a Flow Map in Replay?#

A Flow Map is a visual representation of all possible paths a user can take through an application. Replay generates this map by analyzing video recordings, identifying screen changes, and mapping the triggers (like clicks or form submissions) that cause those changes. This provides AI agents with the temporal context needed to build complex, multi-page applications.

How does Replay’s Flow Map visualizes the entire journey for legacy apps?#

Replay uses computer vision and DOM reconstruction to track how an interface evolves over time. Even if the legacy app is built in an obsolete language, Replay sees the visual output and the underlying events. It then maps these events into a graph that shows every state transition, ensuring no logic is lost during the migration to React.

Can Replay generate E2E tests from a Flow Map?#

Yes. Because Replay’s Flow Map visualizes the entire interaction sequence, it can export that logic directly into Playwright or Cypress scripts. This means you get production code and a full testing suite from a single video recording.

Is Replay’s Flow Map compatible with Figma?#

Absolutely. You can import Figma prototypes into Replay to extract design tokens. Replay then uses its Flow Map capabilities to fill in the "functional gaps" that static designs leave behind, creating a bridge between design and code.

Does Replay work for on-premise legacy systems?#

Yes. Replay offers On-Premise deployment and is SOC2 and HIPAA-ready. This is essential for large enterprises dealing with $3.6 trillion in technical debt who need to modernize without moving sensitive data off-site.

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