Modernizing Public Sector IT: Transitioning 20-Year-Old Portals to Accessible React Apps

70% of public sector legacy rewrites fail or exceed their timeline before the first module ever reaches production. For government agencies, this isn't just a budgetary oversight; it’s a service delivery crisis. When 20-year-old portals—often running on crumbling monoliths with zero documentation—need to meet modern accessibility standards, the traditional "Big Bang" rewrite is a death march.

The $3.6 trillion global technical debt isn't just a number; it’s the reality of a civil servant trying to process a benefit claim on a UI designed for Netscape Navigator. The bottleneck in modernizing public sector IT isn't a lack of modern frameworks like React; it’s the "archaeology" required to understand the business logic buried in the legacy system.

TL;DR: Modernizing public sector portals is traditionally stalled by undocumented legacy logic, but Visual Reverse Engineering with Replay reduces manual screen reconstruction from 40 hours to 4 hours, ensuring 508-compliant React apps are built from the "source of truth"—the user workflow.

The Archaeology Problem: Why Public Sector Rewrites Stall#

The average enterprise rewrite timeline is 18 to 24 months. In the public sector, this often stretches to three or five years. Why? Because 67% of legacy systems lack documentation. The original architects have retired, the COBOL or JSP logic is a "black box," and the only way to understand the system is to click through every possible permutation of a form.

Architects are forced into a "document-first" approach that takes months of manual interviews and code auditing. This is what we call "Technical Archaeology."

The Cost of Manual Extraction#

When a government agency decides to move a legacy portal to a modern React-based Design System, the manual process looks like this:

1. •Discovery: Business analysts record sessions or take screenshots.
2. •Analysis: Developers try to map UI fields to backend database columns.
3. •Design: UI/UX designers recreate the components in Figma.
4. •Development: Engineers write React components from scratch, often missing edge-case logic.

This manual cycle averages 40 hours per screen. For a portal with 100 screens, that’s 4,000 hours of high-cost engineering time just to reach parity—not even to improve the system.

Comparison: Modernization Strategies for Government Portals#

The Replay Methodology: Video as the Source of Truth#

The future of modernizing public sector IT isn't rewriting from scratch—it's understanding what you already have by observing it in action. Replay uses Visual Reverse Engineering to bridge the gap between the legacy "black box" and a modern React architecture.

Instead of reading 20-year-old code, you record a real user workflow. Replay’s AI Automation Suite analyzes the video, extracts the DOM structure, identifies business logic patterns, and generates documented React components and API contracts.

💰 ROI Insight: By shifting from manual extraction (40 hours/screen) to Replay (4 hours/screen), agencies realize a 70% average time savings, moving projects from 18-month cycles to a matter of weeks.

From Legacy JSP/ASP to Accessible React#

Public sector applications must adhere to strict accessibility standards (Section 508/WCAG). Manually retrofitting accessibility into a rewrite is prone to error. Replay’s Library (Design System) feature ensures that every component extracted from the legacy system is mapped to an accessible, themed React component from the start.

Step-by-Step: Modernizing a 20-Year-Old Portal with Replay#

Step 1: Workflow Recording#

Instead of diving into the backend, a subject matter expert (SME) records the standard operating procedures within the legacy portal. Replay captures the "Visual Source of Truth." This bypasses the need for non-existent documentation.

Step 2: Visual Extraction & Blueprinting#

Replay’s Blueprints (Editor) identifies UI patterns. If the legacy system uses a non-standard table for data entry, Replay recognizes the functional intent and maps it to a modern, accessible React Table component.

Step 3: Generating API Contracts#

One of the highest risks in public sector modernization is breaking the integration between the UI and the legacy mainframe or database. Replay generates the API contracts based on the data flow observed during the recording.

typescript
// Example: Generated API Contract from Replay Extraction
// Service: CitizenBenefitPortal
// Legacy Endpoint: /cgi-bin/proc_claim.pl

export interface BenefitClaimRequest {
  citizenId: string; // Extracted from Field_102
  claimType: 'unemployment' | 'disability'; // Mapped from legacy radio group
  submissionDate: string; // ISO format converted from MM/DD/YYYY
}

export interface BenefitClaimResponse {
  status: 'success' | 'pending' | 'error';
  trackingId: string;
}

Step 4: Component Generation#

Replay produces clean, modular React code. It doesn't just "scrape" the UI; it understands the state management required to keep the legacy business logic intact.

typescript
// Example: Generated React component from Replay video extraction
// Preserves legacy validation logic while using modern Tailwind/React
import React, { useState } from 'react';
import { TextField, Button, Alert } from '@/components/ui';

export function ModernizedBenefitForm({ initialData, onSubmit }) {
  const [formData, setFormData] = useState(initialData);
  const [error, setError] = useState(null);

  // Business logic preserved: Field 102 must be 9 digits (SSN)
  const validate = (data) => {
    return /^\d{9}$/.test(data.citizenId);
  };

  const handleAction = async () => {
    if (!validate(formData)) {
      setError("Invalid Identification Format");
      return;
    }
    await onSubmit(formData);
  };

  return (
    <div className="p-6 space-y-4 shadow-lg rounded-xl bg-white">
      <h2 className="text-2xl font-bold">Benefit Application</h2>
      {error && <Alert variant="destructive">{error}</Alert>}
      <TextField 
        label="Citizen ID" 
        value={formData.citizenId} 
        onChange={(val) => setFormData({...formData, citizenId: val})}
        aria-required="true"
      />
      <Button onClick={handleAction}>Submit Claim</Button>
    </div>
  );
}

Addressing the Technical Debt Audit#

Public sector IT leaders are often sitting on a "ticking time bomb" of technical debt. Replay provides a Technical Debt Audit during the extraction process. It identifies:

• •Redundant workflows (where users have to enter the same data twice).
• •Dead code paths that are never reached in recorded sessions.
• •Security vulnerabilities in legacy data handling.

⚠️ Warning: Attempting to modernize without a technical debt audit leads to "garbage in, garbage out"—you simply end up with a modern UI on top of the same broken processes.

Security and Compliance in Regulated Environments#

For Financial Services, Healthcare, and Government, "cloud-only" is often a non-starter. Replay is built for these constraints:

• •SOC2 & HIPAA Ready: Data handling meets the highest security standards.
• •On-Premise Available: For sensitive government data, Replay can run entirely within your air-gapped or private cloud environment.
• •E2E Test Generation: Replay doesn't just give you code; it generates End-to-End tests (Playwright/Cypress) based on the recorded video to ensure the new system behaves exactly like the old one.

The "Flows" Architecture: Mapping the Enterprise#

In a 20-year-old portal, the biggest mystery is often the "Flow." How does a user get from the login screen to a successful permit approval?

Replay's Flows feature creates a visual map of the entire application architecture. It turns the "black box" into a navigable map where architects can see every branch, redirect, and API call. This is the difference between "documenting without archaeology" and guessing.

💡 Pro Tip: Use the "Flows" output as your new system documentation. It stays in sync with the actual code, preventing the "stale docs" problem that plagued the legacy system.

Frequently Asked Questions#

How long does legacy extraction take with Replay?#

While a manual rewrite of a complex portal can take 18-24 months, Replay typically reduces the extraction and component generation phase to 2-8 weeks. The timeline depends on the number of unique workflows, but the 10x speed improvement (40 hours vs 4 hours per screen) remains consistent across industries.

What about business logic preservation?#

Replay captures the visual manifestation of business logic. If a field becomes hidden based on a previous selection, Replay records that state change and reflects it in the generated React logic. For complex backend calculations, Replay generates the API contracts and E2E tests to ensure your new frontend interacts with existing backend services without regression.

Can Replay handle legacy systems with no source code access?#

Yes. Because Replay uses Visual Reverse Engineering, it treats the legacy system as a "black box." As long as a user can interact with the UI, Replay can extract the structure, data flows, and component logic. This is ideal for 3rd-party legacy systems or platforms where the original source code has been lost.

Is the generated code maintainable?#

Unlike "low-code" platforms that spit out unreadable spaghetti code, Replay generates standard, clean React/TypeScript. The components are modular, follow modern best practices, and are designed to be owned and maintained by your internal engineering team.

---

Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay - see your legacy screen extracted live during the call.