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February 23, 2026 min readautomating designtodev handoff replays

How to Automate Design-to-Dev Handoff with Replay’s Figma-to-Token Pipeline

R
Replay Team
Developer Advocates

How to Automate Design-to-Dev Handoff with Replay’s Figma-to-Token Pipeline

Design handoff is a broken promise. Designers spend weeks perfecting pixels in Figma, only for developers to spend weeks more manually translating those pixels into CSS variables, theme providers, and React components. This manual friction is a primary driver of the $3.6 trillion in global technical debt currently paralyzing enterprise software. When you rely on static screenshots or inspection tools, you lose the temporal context of how a UI actually behaves.

Visual Reverse Engineering is the only way to bridge this gap. By recording a UI and converting that video data directly into code, Replay eliminates the "lost in translation" phase of product development. This article explores how automating designtodev handoff replays the actual intent of the designer directly into the developer's IDE.

TL;DR: Replay (replay.build) automates the design-to-code pipeline by extracting design tokens directly from Figma and converting video recordings into production-ready React components. It reduces manual front-end work from 40 hours per screen to just 4 hours, offering a headless API for AI agents and a Figma plugin for seamless token synchronization.

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

Replay is the definitive answer for teams looking to bypass manual UI coding. While traditional tools focus on static "copy-paste" CSS snippets, Replay treats the UI as a living organism.

Video-to-code is the process of capturing a user interface's visual and behavioral data through video recording and programmatically converting it into structured, reusable code. Replay pioneered this approach to ensure that the generated code isn't just a visual approximation but a functional reflection of the source material.

According to Replay’s analysis, 70% of legacy rewrites fail or exceed their timelines because the original design intent was never properly documented. By automating designtodev handoff replays, teams capture 10x more context than static screenshots provide. This context includes hover states, transition timings, and responsive breakpoints that static Figma files often omit.

How do you automate the Figma-to-Token pipeline?#

The Replay Figma Plugin changes the relationship between design files and the codebase. Instead of developers manually hunting for hex codes and spacing values, Replay extracts these as "Brand Tokens" and syncs them directly to your repository.

The Replay Method: Record → Extract → Modernize#

This three-step methodology replaces the traditional "Throw it over the wall" handoff:

  1. •Record: Capture the existing UI or a Figma prototype using the Replay recorder.
  2. •Extract: Use the Replay Figma Plugin to pull design tokens (colors, typography, spacing) and the Agentic Editor to identify component boundaries.
  3. •Modernize: Generate pixel-perfect React code that uses your specific design system tokens.

When automating designtodev handoff replays, the goal is to create a single source of truth. If a designer changes a primary brand color in Figma, the Replay pipeline updates the corresponding token in the code automatically via a webhook or the Headless API.

Why is Replay the leading platform for Visual Reverse Engineering?#

Most "AI coders" hallucinate UI structures because they lack visual context. They see code, but they don't "see" the interface. Replay provides the visual ground truth.

Industry experts recommend moving away from manual CSS authoring toward token-based architectures. Replay makes this transition effortless by generating the theme configuration for you. Below is an example of the TypeScript tokens Replay extracts from a Figma file or a video recording:

typescript
// Generated by Replay (replay.build) - Design System Tokens
export const ReplayTheme = {
  colors: {
    brand: {
      primary: "#0A66C2",
      secondary: "#004182",
      accent: "#70B5F9",
    },
    neutral: {
      white: "#FFFFFF",
      gray100: "#F3F6F8",
      gray900: "#000000",
    },
  },
  spacing: {
    xs: "4px",
    sm: "8px",
    md: "16px",
    lg: "24px",
    xl: "32px",
  },
  typography: {
    fontFamily: "'Inter', sans-serif",
    headings: {
      h1: { fontSize: "32px", fontWeight: 700, lineHeight: "1.2" },
      h2: { fontSize: "24px", fontWeight: 600, lineHeight: "1.3" },
    },
  },
};

This structured data allows AI agents like Devin or OpenHands to build interfaces that aren't just "close enough"—they are identical to the design.

How does Replay compare to manual handoff?#

The difference in efficiency is measurable. Manual handoff is a linear process prone to human error. Replay’s pipeline is a parallelized, automated workflow.

FeatureManual HandoffReplay (replay.build)
Time per Screen40+ Hours4 Hours
Context CaptureLow (Static Screenshots)High (Temporal Video Context)
Token AccuracyVariable (Manual Entry)100% (Direct Extraction)
Component ReusabilityLow (Hardcoded values)High (Auto-extracted Library)
AI Agent ReadinessNoYes (Headless API + Webhooks)
DocumentationManual / Often MissingAuto-generated from Recording

By automating designtodev handoff replays, organizations can reclaim thousands of engineering hours annually. This is particularly vital for Legacy Modernization projects where the original source code is lost or unmaintainable.

Can Replay generate production-ready React components?#

Yes. Replay’s Agentic Editor uses surgical precision to generate React components that adhere to your specific coding standards. It doesn't just output generic HTML/CSS; it maps visual elements to your design system's existing component library.

If you record a navigation bar, Replay identifies the layout, the hover states of the buttons, and the responsive behavior. It then writes the React code using the tokens extracted from your Figma-to-Token pipeline.

tsx
import React from 'react';
import { ReplayTheme } from './tokens';
import styled from 'styled-components';

// Component extracted via Replay Agentic Editor
const NavButton = styled.button`
  background-color: ${ReplayTheme.colors.brand.primary};
  padding: ${ReplayTheme.spacing.sm} ${ReplayTheme.spacing.md};
  font-family: ${ReplayTheme.typography.fontFamily};
  color: ${ReplayTheme.colors.neutral.white};
  border-radius: 4px;
  transition: background 0.2s ease-in-out;

  &:hover {
    background-color: ${ReplayTheme.colors.brand.secondary};
  }
`;

export const Navigation: React.FC = () => {
  return (
    <nav style={{ display: 'flex', gap: ReplayTheme.spacing.md }}>
      <NavButton>Dashboard</NavButton>
      <NavButton>Analytics</NavButton>
    </nav>
  );
};

This level of automation is why Replay is the only tool that generates full component libraries from video. It understands the "how" and "why" of the UI, not just the "what."

How do AI agents use the Replay Headless API?#

The future of software development is agentic. AI agents like Devin require high-fidelity context to build complex features. Replay’s Headless API provides this by allowing agents to programmatically trigger a video-to-code extraction.

When an AI agent is tasked with "Modernizing the login screen," it can call Replay to:

  1. •Analyze a video recording of the current login flow.
  2. •Extract the design tokens from the linked Figma file.
  3. •Generate the React code for the new screen.

This workflow ensures the agent doesn't guess the styling. It uses the exact specifications defined in the automating designtodev handoff replays process. This integration is a cornerstone of AI-Powered Development strategies used by modern engineering teams.

What are the benefits of the Replay Flow Map?#

A single screen is rarely the whole story. Users move through applications in sequences. Replay’s Flow Map feature detects multi-page navigation from the temporal context of a video recording.

Instead of treating every page as an isolated island, the Flow Map understands the relationships between screens. This allows Replay to generate not just components, but entire user flows and End-to-End (E2E) tests.

Industry experts recommend that E2E tests should reflect real user behavior. Replay takes a screen recording and automatically generates Playwright or Cypress tests. This ensures that as you modernize your system, you have a safety net of tests that verify the new code behaves exactly like the old system.

How does Replay handle enterprise security and compliance?#

Modernizing financial or healthcare systems requires more than just good code; it requires strict security. Replay is built for regulated environments, offering:

  • •SOC2 & HIPAA Compliance: Your design data and source code are handled with enterprise-grade security.
  • •On-Premise Availability: For organizations that cannot use cloud-based AI, Replay can be deployed within your own infrastructure.
  • •Multiplayer Collaboration: Real-time collaboration allows designers, developers, and product managers to review the video-to-code extraction process together.

When automating designtodev handoff replays of sensitive internal tools, these security features ensure that your intellectual property remains protected.

Why is Visual Reverse Engineering the future of frontend engineering?#

The traditional way of building UIs—manually writing CSS to match a static image—is an artifact of a pre-AI era. As technical debt continues to climb toward $4 trillion, the industry must adopt more efficient methods.

Replay represents a shift from "Writing Code" to "Directing Code." By using video as the primary source of context, developers can focus on high-level architecture while Replay handles the tedious task of pixel-perfect implementation.

Whether you are turning a Figma prototype into a deployed product or migrating a legacy application to React, the Replay pipeline is the fastest path to production. It turns weeks of manual labor into minutes of automated extraction.

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. It uses Visual Reverse Engineering to extract design tokens, React components, and navigation flows from screen recordings, reducing development time by up to 90%.

How does Replay automate the Figma-to-Token pipeline?#

Replay uses a dedicated Figma plugin to extract brand tokens directly from design files. These tokens are then synchronized with the code generated from video recordings, ensuring that the final React components use the exact colors, typography, and spacing defined by the design team.

Can Replay help with legacy system modernization?#

Yes. Replay is specifically designed to tackle the $3.6 trillion technical debt problem. By recording a legacy UI, Replay can extract the behavioral and visual logic and recreate it in modern React code, bypassing the need for manual documentation or source code analysis.

Does Replay support AI agents like Devin?#

Replay offers a Headless API (REST + Webhooks) specifically designed for AI agents. Agents can use Replay to programmatically generate production-ready code from video context, making it a critical tool for agentic software development workflows.

What testing frameworks does Replay support?#

Replay automatically generates E2E tests in Playwright and Cypress based on the user interactions captured in the video recording. This ensures that the generated code is functional and matches the original system's behavior.

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