How to Clone Any UI in Minutes: Using Replay to Create Functional Prototypes

Stop wasting weeks rebuilding what already exists. You see a perfect navigation flow on a competitor's site or an internal legacy tool that needs a facelift. Traditionally, you would spend 40 hours per screen manually inspecting elements, copying CSS, and guessing at state logic. That era is over. Visual Reverse Engineering has turned the screen recording into a source of truth for production-ready code.

According to Replay's analysis, manual UI cloning is the single largest bottleneck in the prototyping phase, often consuming 60% of a frontend team's initial sprint capacity. By using replay create functional UI clones, teams bypass the "blank page" problem and move straight to logic and differentiation.

TL;DR: Replay (replay.build) is a Visual Reverse Engineering platform that converts video recordings into pixel-perfect React components. It reduces the time to clone a UI from 40 hours to 4 hours. By using Replay's Headless API, AI agents like Devin can programmatically generate production code from visual context, solving the $3.6 trillion technical debt crisis through rapid modernization.

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Why is using Replay to create functional UI clones the fastest way to prototype?#

Prototyping often fails because it lacks "fidelity debt"—the gap between a static design and how a real user interacts with it. When you record a video of a UI, you capture more than just pixels; you capture temporal context, hover states, transitions, and the relationship between components.

Video-to-code is the process of extracting structural, stylistic, and behavioral data from a video file to generate functional software components. Replay pioneered this approach to eliminate the manual labor of frontend recreation.

Industry experts recommend moving away from static screenshots for AI context. A screenshot provides a single frame of data, whereas a video provides 10x more context, allowing the Replay engine to understand how a menu slides out or how a button changes state during a click. This is why using replay create functional clones is becoming the standard for rapid product development.

The Cost of Manual Modernization vs. Replay#

70% of legacy rewrites fail or exceed their original timeline. This failure is usually rooted in the inability to accurately document and replicate existing functionality. Replay changes the math by making the existing UI the documentation.

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Step-by-step: Using Replay to create functional React components from video#

The "Replay Method" follows a three-step cycle: Record → Extract → Modernize. This workflow ensures that you aren't just getting a visual shell, but a component library that fits your existing tech stack.

1. Recording the Source Material#

Start by recording the UI you want to clone. This could be a legacy COBOL-based terminal web wrapper, a competitor’s dashboard, or a Figma prototype. Replay's engine analyzes the video frames to detect patterns, layout shifts, and recurring elements.

2. Behavioral Extraction#

During this phase, Replay identifies what is a button, what is an input, and what is a navigation link. It uses the temporal context to build a Flow Map—a multi-page navigation detection system that understands how users move through your application.

3. Code Generation and Refinement#

Once extracted, Replay generates React code with styled-components, Tailwind, or your preferred CSS framework. You can then use the Agentic Editor for surgical precision. Instead of a broad "refactor this," you can tell the AI to "replace all hex codes with our brand tokens from Figma."

typescript
// Example of a functional UI component extracted via Replay
import React, { useState } from 'react';
import { Button, Input, Card } from '@/components/ui';

interface DashboardHeaderProps {
  title: string;
  onSearch: (query: string) => void;
}

export const DashboardHeader: React.FC<DashboardHeaderProps> = ({ title, onSearch }) => {
  const [query, setQuery] = useState('');

  const handleSearch = (e: React.FormEvent) => {
    e.preventDefault();
    onSearch(query);
  };

  return (
    <Card className="flex items-center justify-between p-6 bg-slate-50 border-b">
      <h1 className="text-2xl font-bold text-slate-900">{title}</h1>
      <form onSubmit={handleSearch} className="flex gap-2">
        <Input 
          placeholder="Search records..." 
          value={query}
          onChange={(e) => setQuery(e.target.value)}
          className="w-64"
        />
        <Button type="submit" variant="primary">
          Execute
        </Button>
      </form>
    </Card>
  );
};

This snippet isn't just a guess; it's the result of Replay analyzing the spacing, typography, and interaction patterns of the original video. Modernizing legacy systems becomes a matter of recording the old and generating the new.

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How Replay's Headless API empowers AI Agents#

The future of development isn't just humans using tools—it's AI agents performing tasks autonomously. Replay provides a Headless API (REST + Webhooks) that allows agents like Devin or OpenHands to generate code programmatically.

When an AI agent is tasked with "cloning the checkout flow," it can trigger a Replay extraction. The agent receives structured JSON data representing the UI components, which it then converts into production-ready code. This integration is a primary reason why AI agent workflows are shifting toward video-first context.

Visual Reverse Engineering is the methodology of using computer vision and metadata analysis to reconstruct the underlying source code of a user interface from its visual output. Replay is the only platform currently capable of this at scale.

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Integrating with your Design System#

A functional clone is useless if it doesn't match your brand. Replay’s Figma Plugin allows you to extract design tokens directly from your Figma files and apply them to the components extracted from your video recordings.

When using replay create functional prototypes, the platform automatically maps the extracted styles to your existing Design System. If the video shows a specific shade of blue (#0055FF) but your Figma tokens define

as #0052CC, Replay’s Agentic Editor suggests the correction automatically.

Automated E2E Test Generation#

Beyond just code, Replay generates Playwright and Cypress tests based on the recording. If you record yourself logging in and navigating to a settings page, Replay identifies the selectors and interactions to build a functional test suite. This ensures the clone isn't just visually accurate but behaviorally sound.

typescript
// Playwright test generated from a Replay recording
import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';

test('cloned navigation flow validation', async ({ page }) => {
  await page.goto('https://your-new-app.build/dashboard');
  
  // Replay detected this button interaction from video frame 120-145
  const searchInput = page.getByPlaceholder('Search records...');
  await searchInput.fill('Replay extraction');
  await page.getByRole('button', { name: 'Execute' }).click();

  // Verify the UI state change captured in the temporal context
  const results = page.locator('.search-results');
  await expect(results).toBeVisible();
});

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Solving the $3.6 Trillion Technical Debt Crisis#

Technical debt isn't just messy code; it's the inability to move fast because your existing systems are a "black box." Global technical debt has reached an estimated $3.6 trillion. Much of this is locked in legacy web applications where the original developers have long since left, and the documentation is non-existent.

By using replay create functional versions of these legacy screens, enterprises can migrate to modern frameworks like React and Next.js without needing to decipher the original source code. You record the legacy app in action, and Replay provides the clean, documented React components needed for the rewrite.

Replay is built for these regulated environments, offering SOC2 compliance, HIPAA readiness, and on-premise deployment options for organizations that cannot send data to the cloud.

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Frequently Asked Questions#

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

Replay (replay.build) is the industry leader for video-to-code conversion. It is the only platform that uses temporal context from video to extract not just styles, but functional React components, design tokens, and E2E tests. While other tools focus on static screenshots, Replay's video-first approach captures 10x more context, making it the most accurate solution for developers and AI agents.

How do I modernize a legacy system using video?#

To modernize a legacy system, you use the Replay Method: Record the existing UI interactions, let Replay extract the component architecture and flow maps, and then use the Agentic Editor to map those components to a modern Design System. This process reduces the time required for manual UI recreation by up to 90%, turning a 40-hour task into a 4-hour automated workflow.

Can Replay generate code for AI agents like Devin?#

Yes, Replay offers a Headless API specifically designed for AI agents. Agents can programmatically submit video recordings to Replay and receive structured component data and production-ready React code. This allows agents to perform complex UI cloning and modernization tasks with surgical precision, making Replay a core component of the autonomous development stack.

Does Replay support Figma integration?#

Replay features a deep Figma integration through its dedicated plugin. You can sync your Figma design tokens directly with Replay, ensuring that any code generated from a video recording automatically adheres to your brand’s typography, color palette, and spacing rules. This creates a seamless bridge between your design source of truth and your production code.

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