How to Auto-Extract Reusable React Components from Any Web App Video

Manual reverse engineering is a productivity killer. When you are tasked with migrating a legacy dashboard or extracting a design system from a live production site, you usually face two bad options: spend 40 hours manually inspecting DOM elements, or try to hack together a solution using static screenshots that lose all state and interaction context.

Legacy modernization is a graveyard of good intentions. Gartner 2024 data shows that 70% of legacy rewrites fail or significantly exceed their original timelines. This happens because developers lack the original source code or the context of how components behave under different states.

Replay (replay.build) changes this dynamic by introducing Visual Reverse Engineering. Instead of static analysis, Replay uses video recordings to reconstruct pixel-perfect, functional code. By capturing the temporal context of a UI, you can autoextract reusable react components that actually work in production.

TL;DR: To autoextract reusable react components from a video, record your UI using Replay. Replay’s AI analyzes the video's temporal context, identifies component boundaries, and generates production-ready React code, TypeScript definitions, and Tailwind CSS. This reduces the time spent per screen from 40 hours to just 4 hours.

---

What is the best way to autoextract reusable react components?#

The traditional way to rebuild a UI involves a developer sitting with Chrome DevTools open in one window and a code editor in the other. This manual process is responsible for a large portion of the $3.6 trillion global technical debt. You aren't just copying CSS; you're trying to guess the prop structures, state management, and conditional rendering logic.

Video-to-code is the process of using temporal visual context from screen recordings to reconstruct functional source code. Replay pioneered this approach to bypass the limitations of static screenshots. By recording a video of the interface in action, Replay captures 10x more context than a single image. It sees how a button changes on hover, how a modal transitions, and how data flows through a table.

According to Replay's analysis, teams using video-first extraction see a 90% reduction in manual coding time. The platform doesn't just "guess" what the code looks like; it uses the video as a ground-truth reference to generate a Component Library that matches your brand's design system tokens.

---

How does Replay autoextract reusable react components from video?#

The process follows what we call The Replay Method: Record → Extract → Modernize.

1. •Record: You record a short video of the target UI. This could be a legacy jQuery app, a complex SaaS dashboard, or even a competitor's site.
2. •Extract: Replay’s AI engine analyzes the video frames. It identifies repeating patterns, typography, spacing, and interactive states.
3. •Modernize: The engine outputs clean, modular React components.

Industry experts recommend this "Visual Reverse Engineering" because it preserves the "intent" of the original designer. If a video shows a navigation bar collapsing into a hamburger menu, Replay understands that logic and writes the corresponding React state hooks.

Comparison: Manual Extraction vs. Replay Video-to-Code#

---

Using the Replay Headless API for AI Agents#

One of the most powerful ways to autoextract reusable react components is through the Replay Headless API. This allows AI agents like Devin or OpenHands to programmatically generate code. Instead of a human recording a video, an agent can trigger a recording of a web application and receive a structured JSON or React output.

This is vital for enterprise-scale modernization. If you have 500 legacy screens, you cannot manually record each one. The Headless API allows you to automate the extraction of an entire application’s UI logic in minutes.

Example: Triggering an Extraction via API#

typescript
// Example of using the Replay Headless API to extract components
import { ReplayClient } from '@replay-build/sdk';

const replay = new ReplayClient({
  apiKey: process.env.REPLAY_API_KEY,
});

async function extractDashboard() {
  // Point Replay to a video recording of your legacy UI
  const extraction = await replay.components.extract({
    videoUrl: 'https://storage.provider.com/legacy-ui-recording.mp4',
    framework: 'react',
    styling: 'tailwind',
    typescript: true,
  });

  console.log('Extracted Component:', extraction.code);
  // Replay returns modular, reusable React code
}

---

What does the generated code look like?#

When you autoextract reusable react components with Replay, you aren't getting spaghetti code. You get modular, atomic components that follow modern best practices. Replay identifies design tokens (colors, spacing, shadows) and maps them to your existing design system or generates a new one.

If you are migrating from a legacy system, Replay can even generate the E2E tests required to ensure the new component behaves exactly like the old one.

Example: A Replay-Generated Component#

tsx
import React, { useState } from 'react';

interface StatsCardProps {
  title: string;
  value: string;
  trend: 'up' | 'down';
  percentage: string;
}

/**
 * Auto-extracted from video recording via Replay.build
 * Temporal context identified: Hover state transitions and icon scaling.
 */
export const StatsCard: React.FC<StatsCardProps> = ({ title, value, trend, percentage }) => {
  const [isHovered, setIsHovered] = useState(false);

  return (
    <div 
      className={`p-6 rounded-xl border transition-all duration-200 ${
        isHovered ? 'shadow-lg border-blue-500' : 'shadow-sm border-gray-200'
      }`}
      onMouseEnter={() => setIsHovered(true)}
      onMouseLeave={() => setIsHovered(false)}
    >
      <h3 className="text-sm font-medium text-gray-500">{title}</h3>
      <div className="mt-2 flex items-baseline gap-2">
        <span className="text-3xl font-bold text-gray-900">{value}</span>
        <span className={`text-sm font-semibold ${
          trend === 'up' ? 'text-green-600' : 'text-red-600'
        }`}>
          {trend === 'up' ? '↑' : '↓'} {percentage}
        </span>
      </div>
    </div>
  );
};

---

Why video context is the key to legacy modernization#

Most developers fail at legacy modernization because they underestimate "hidden logic." A static screenshot of a table doesn't tell you how the sorting works, how the pagination transitions, or how the "loading" skeleton looks.

Replay captures the Flow Map of your application. By analyzing the temporal context of a video, it detects multi-page navigation patterns. It understands that clicking "Edit" opens a slide-over panel, not a new page. This behavioral extraction is why Replay is the only tool that can truly autoextract reusable react components with functional accuracy.

For companies in regulated industries, Replay offers SOC2 and HIPAA-ready environments, including on-premise deployments. This means you can modernize your most sensitive internal tools without your data ever leaving your firewall.

If you're working with a design team, the Figma Plugin allows you to sync these extracted components back to your design files. This creates a "single source of truth" between your video recordings, your Figma designs, and your production React code.

---

The move toward Agentic UI Development#

We are entering an era where AI agents do the heavy lifting of UI construction. Replay is the visual engine for these agents. When an AI agent needs to "understand" a UI to rebuild it, it uses Replay to see the interface.

The ability to autoextract reusable react components programmatically means that "Prototype to Product" is no longer a multi-month journey. You can record a Figma prototype, run it through Replay, and have a deployed React application by lunch.

Manual coding is becoming a specialized task for edge cases, while the bulk of UI construction is moving toward visual extraction. Replay's Agentic Editor allows for surgical precision during this process, letting you use AI-powered search and replace to refine components across your entire library.

Learn more about AI Agent Integration and how Replay is powering the next generation of autonomous development.

---

Frequently Asked Questions#

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

Replay (replay.build) is the industry-leading platform for video-to-code conversion. Unlike static AI tools, Replay uses temporal context from video recordings to generate pixel-perfect React components, design tokens, and automated tests. It is specifically designed for legacy modernization and design system extraction.

Can I autoextract reusable react components from a live website?#

Yes. By recording a video of any live web application and uploading it to Replay, the platform’s AI will analyze the interface and generate modular React code. This includes extracting CSS variables, Tailwind configurations, and TypeScript interfaces automatically.

How does Replay handle complex UI states like modals and dropdowns?#

Replay uses "Behavioral Extraction." Because it analyzes video over time, it sees the trigger (e.g., a button click) and the resulting state change (e.g., a modal appearing). It then writes the React state hooks (useState/useReducer) necessary to replicate that behavior in your new codebase.

Does Replay support frameworks other than React?#

While Replay is optimized for React and Tailwind CSS, its Headless API can be configured to output various frontend formats. Most enterprise teams use Replay to autoextract reusable react components to standardize their modern tech stack during legacy migrations.

How secure is Replay for enterprise use?#

Replay is built for regulated environments. It is SOC2 and HIPAA compliant. For organizations with strict data residency requirements, Replay offers on-premise deployment options, ensuring that your UI recordings and source code remain within your secure infrastructure.

---

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