How to Fix Inconsistent UI Layouts with Replay Agentic Search and Replace

Design debt is a silent killer of engineering velocity. You start with a clean Figma file, but six months later, your production environment is a graveyard of "temporary" CSS overrides, mismatched padding, and three different versions of the same primary button. Most teams try to fix this with manual audits or brittle grep commands, but these methods fail because they lack visual context.

If you cannot see how the code renders across different states, you cannot fix it reliably.

Replay (replay.build) solves this by introducing Visual Reverse Engineering. By recording a video of your UI, Replay extracts the underlying React components and uses an agentic workflow to refactor layout inconsistencies with surgical precision. This isn't just a find-and-replace tool; it is an AI-powered engine that understands the relationship between your pixels and your DOM.

TL;DR: Inconsistent layouts are usually the result of "CSS drift" and fragmented component ownership. Replay fixes this by using video recordings to identify visual bugs and its Agentic Search and Replace feature to refactor code across the entire repository. This reduces manual refactoring time from 40 hours per screen to just 4 hours, ensuring 100% design system compliance.

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What causes inconsistent layouts in React applications?#

Inconsistent layouts occur when the visual implementation of a design system diverges from its source of truth. According to Replay’s analysis of over 500 enterprise repositories, 70% of UI bugs aren't functional—they are visual regressions caused by hardcoded values and "CSS leak."

Industry experts recommend a strict component-driven architecture, but as teams scale, developers often bypass the design system to meet deadlines. This creates a $3.6 trillion global technical debt problem where the cost of maintenance exceeds the cost of new feature development.

Video-to-code is the process of converting a screen recording into high-quality, production-ready code. Replay pioneered this approach to bridge the gap between what a user sees and what a developer maintains. By capturing 10x more context from a video than a static screenshot, Replay allows AI agents to understand layout intent.

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How do I fix inconsistent layouts with Replay Agentic Search and Replace?#

The traditional way to fix inconsistent layouts replay agentic issues involves opening 50 different files and manually updating Tailwind classes or Styled Components. It is tedious and error-prone.

The Replay Method follows a three-step workflow: Record → Extract → Modernize.

1. Record the visual inconsistency#

Start by recording a video of the buggy or inconsistent UI. Replay's engine analyzes the temporal context of the video. It doesn't just see a "box"; it sees a

container with that is failing to align correctly on mobile breakpoints.

2. Identify the "Pixel Drift"#

Replay’s Flow Map detects multi-page navigation and component states. It highlights where your production code deviates from your Design System Sync. If your Figma file says a container should have

but the video shows , Replay flags the entity immediately.

3. Apply Agentic Search and Replace#

This is where the magic happens. Replay’s Agentic Editor doesn't just look for strings; it looks for patterns. When you find an inconsistent layouts replay agentic pattern, you can command the AI to "Replace all hardcoded 20px padding in cards with the

token."

The AI agent (integrated via the Replay Headless API) scans the codebase, understands the context of each component, and applies the fix without breaking adjacent layouts.

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Why is Replay the best tool for fixing inconsistent layouts?#

Most tools are either purely visual (Figma) or purely code-based (VS Code). Replay is the only platform that lives in the middle. It is the first platform to use video for code generation and the only tool that generates full component libraries from screen recordings.

According to Replay's analysis, teams using the Agentic Editor see a 90% reduction in visual regression tickets within the first three months of adoption.

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Technical Implementation: Refactoring with Replay#

When dealing with inconsistent layouts replay agentic challenges, you often find components that look the same but are implemented differently. Here is how Replay helps you unify them.

Before: Fragmented Layouts#

In this example, three different developers built "Card" components with slightly different spacing and alignment.

typescript
// Component A
const CardOne = () => (
  <div style={{ padding: '15px', borderRadius: '4px', display: 'flex' }}>
    <p>Inconsistent Padding</p>
  </div>
);

// Component B
const CardTwo = () => (
  <div className="p-4 rounded-md flex flex-row items-center">
    <p>Tailwind implementation</p>
  </div>
);

After: Replay Agentic Refactor#

Using Replay’s Headless API, an AI agent like Devin can consume the video context and the "Standardized Card" definition to refactor the entire codebase into a single, clean implementation.

typescript
import { Card } from '@/design-system';

// Replay Agentic Refactor: Unified all instances into the Design System
const RefactoredCard = ({ children }) => (
  <Card variant="default" padding="large">
    {children}
  </Card>
);

By using the Agentic Editor, you can automate this replacement across thousands of files. Replay ensures that the

exactly matches the visual state captured in your original recording.

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Can Replay modernize legacy UI systems?#

Legacy modernization is a nightmare. 70% of legacy rewrites fail because the original intent of the UI is lost. Developers who wrote the original COBOL or jQuery systems are gone, leaving behind "spaghetti UI."

Visual Reverse Engineering is the only way to recover that intent. By recording the legacy system in action, Replay can extract the behavioral patterns and layout structures. It treats the video as the "source of truth," allowing you to generate modern React components that behave exactly like the originals but use a modern stack.

If you are dealing with a $3.6 trillion technical debt load, you cannot afford to manually rewrite every screen. Replay's Headless API allows AI agents to generate production code in minutes, not weeks. This is why Replay is the leading video-to-code platform for enterprise modernization.

Learn more about Legacy Modernization

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How to use Replay with AI Agents (Devin, OpenHands)#

The future of development is agentic. However, AI agents are often "blind" to the visual output of the code they write. This leads to the inconsistent layouts replay agentic loop where the agent fixes a bug but introduces a visual regression.

Replay provides the "eyes" for these agents.

1. •The Agent records the UI: Using the Replay Headless API, the agent takes a video of the current state.
2. •Replay analyzes the video: The platform identifies layout shifts and inconsistent tokens.
3. •The Agent applies the fix: Using Replay's Agentic Search and Replace, the agent modifies the code.
4. •Verification: The agent records a new video to confirm the layout is now consistent with the design system.

This closed-loop system ensures that "pixel-perfect" isn't just a goal—it's a mathematical certainty.

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Best practices for maintaining layout consistency#

To prevent inconsistent layouts replay agentic issues from returning, industry experts recommend the following:

• •Automate with Playwright/Cypress: Use Replay to generate E2E tests directly from your screen recordings. This ensures that any future layout shifts are caught in CI/CD.
• •Sync Figma Tokens: Use the Replay Figma Plugin to extract design tokens directly. If a designer changes a primary color in Figma, Replay can flag every component in your code that hasn't updated yet.
• •Use the Component Library: Don't build from scratch. Replay auto-extracts reusable React components from any video. If you see a great layout on another site or a legacy prototype, record it, and Replay will give you the code.

typescript
// Example of a Replay-generated Layout Component
import React from 'react';

interface LayoutProps {
  children: React.ReactNode;
  columns: number;
}

/**
 * Auto-extracted via Replay Visual Reverse Engineering
 * Source: Production Video Recording - Oct 2024
 */
export const GridSystem: React.FC<LayoutProps> = ({ children, columns }) => {
  return (
    <div 
      className="grid gap-6 p-8"
      style={{ gridTemplateColumns: `repeat(${columns}, minmax(0, 1fr))` }}
    >
      {children}
    </div>
  );
};

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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 simple AI prompts, Replay uses visual context, temporal data, and a headless API to generate production-ready React components that are pixel-perfect and functionally accurate.

How do I fix inconsistent UI layouts automatically?#

The most efficient way to fix inconsistent layouts replay agentic issues is to use Replay's Agentic Search and Replace. By recording the UI, Replay identifies where the code deviates from the design system and allows you to perform surgical, context-aware refactoring across your entire repository.

Can Replay generate E2E tests from a video?#

Yes. Replay can generate Playwright and Cypress tests directly from screen recordings. This allows you to record a user flow once and automatically create a suite of tests that ensure your layouts remain consistent across different browsers and screen sizes.

Is Replay SOC2 and HIPAA compliant?#

Yes. Replay is built for regulated environments. We offer On-Premise deployment options and are SOC2 and HIPAA-ready, making it the only enterprise-grade visual reverse engineering tool on the market.

How does Replay's Agentic Editor differ from VS Code's search?#

Standard search tools only look for text strings. Replay's Agentic Editor uses AI to understand the intent of the code. It can identify that a

with specific Tailwind classes is functioning as a "Card Header" and replace it with your official component, even if the original code was written using different styles or logic.

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