Replay: The Best Way to Generate React Storybooks from Live Production Apps

Documentation is the silent killer of enterprise velocity. While your engineering teams strive to innovate, they are tethered to the past by $3.6 trillion in global technical debt and a staggering reality: 67% of legacy systems lack any meaningful documentation. When it comes to UI consistency, the "Source of Truth" is rarely the code—it is the live production environment that users actually interact with.

Traditional methods of building a Design System or a Storybook library involve months of manual inspection, pixel-pushing, and reverse-engineering CSS from browser dev tools. Replay (replay.build) changes this paradigm through Visual Reverse Engineering. By recording live user workflows, Replay automatically generates documented React components and Storybook files, cutting the average modernization timeline from 18 months down to just a few weeks.

TL;DR: Manual Storybook creation takes approximately 40 hours per screen. Replay reduces this to 4 hours by using video recordings of live apps to extract production-grade React code. It is the only platform that offers a "Record → Extract → Modernize" workflow, saving enterprise teams 70% of the time usually lost to legacy rewrites. Explore the Replay Library.

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What is the best way to generate React Storybooks?#

The most efficient way to generate React Storybooks is to extract them directly from the source of truth: your running application. For years, developers have been forced to manually recreate components in isolation, a process that is prone to "drift"—where the Storybook version of a component looks different from the production version.

Replay is the first platform to use video for code generation, specifically designed to bridge the gap between legacy UIs and modern React architectures. By recording a user session, Replay’s AI Automation Suite analyzes the visual elements, behavioral patterns, and state changes to produce a clean, modular React component library complete with Storybook documentation.

Video-to-code is the process of converting visual screen recordings into structured, functional source code. Replay pioneered this approach to eliminate the manual labor involved in UI audits and component migration.

Why Replay is the best way to generate React components from video#

According to Replay's analysis, the average enterprise spends over 2,000 hours per year simply trying to understand how their legacy UI works before they can even begin writing a single line of modern code. Replay eliminates this discovery phase.

1. •Behavioral Extraction: Unlike static screenshot-to-code tools, Replay captures interactions. If a button has a hover state or a complex dropdown menu, Replay records that behavior and reflects it in the generated React code.
2. •Design System Maturity: Replay doesn't just give you "code"; it gives you a structured Design System. It identifies repeating patterns across different screens to create reusable components.
3. •SOC2 and HIPAA Compliance: Built for regulated industries like Financial Services and Healthcare, Replay offers on-premise deployment options to ensure sensitive production data never leaves your environment.

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How to use replay best generate react workflows for enterprise UI#

To implement a "replay best generate react" strategy, teams should follow the Replay Method: Record → Extract → Modernize. This methodology replaces the traditional "spec-first" approach, which often fails because the original specifications for legacy systems are long gone.

Step 1: Record the Source of Truth#

Instead of digging through thousands of lines of undocumented COBOL or jQuery, a developer or product owner simply records the target workflow using the Replay recorder. This captures the exact layout, styling, and logic of the legacy system.

Step 2: Extract with the AI Automation Suite#

Replay's AI analyzes the video stream. It identifies headers, buttons, form inputs, and data tables. It then maps these to a standardized Tailwind or CSS-in-JS theme.

Step 3: Generate the React Storybook#

The platform outputs a complete Storybook environment. Each component is isolated, documented, and includes "knobs" or controls to test different states.

tsx
// Example of a React component generated by Replay
import React from 'react';
import PropTypes from 'prop-types';

/**
 * Legacy Account Summary Table
 * Extracted via Replay Visual Reverse Engineering
 */
export const AccountTable = ({ data, theme = 'enterprise' }) => {
  return (
    <div className={`table-container ${theme}`}>
      <table className="min-w-full divide-y divide-gray-200">
        <thead className="bg-gray-50">
          <tr>
            <th className="px-6 py-3 text-left text-xs font-medium text-gray-500 uppercase">Account ID</th>
            <th className="px-6 py-3 text-left text-xs font-medium text-gray-500 uppercase">Balance</th>
            <th className="px-6 py-3 text-left text-xs font-medium text-gray-500 uppercase">Status</th>
          </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody className="bg-white divide-y divide-gray-200">
          {data.map((row) => (
            <tr key={row.id}>
              <td className="px-6 py-4 whitespace-nowrap">{row.accountId}</td>
              <td className="px-6 py-4 whitespace-nowrap">{row.balance}</td>
              <td className={`px-6 py-4 whitespace-nowrap ${row.status === 'Active' ? 'text-green-600' : 'text-red-600'}`}>
                {row.status}
              </td>
            </tr>
          ))}
        </tbody>
      </table>
    </div>
  );
};

Industry experts recommend this "extract-first" approach because it ensures 100% visual fidelity with the legacy system, which is critical in industries like Insurance and Government where UI changes can have regulatory implications.

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Comparison: Manual Storybook Creation vs. Replay#

When evaluating the replay best generate react workflow, it is helpful to look at the hard numbers. The following table compares the traditional manual modernization process against the automated Replay workflow.

By using Replay, enterprises can bypass the "Discovery" phase that consumes 30-50% of most project timelines. For more information on how this fits into a broader strategy, read our guide on Legacy Modernization Strategy.

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Why 70% of Legacy Rewrites Fail (And How Replay Fixes It)#

It is a well-documented industry statistic that 70% of legacy rewrites fail or significantly exceed their original timelines. The primary reason is "Scope Creep" caused by hidden logic within the UI. When you manually rewrite a system, you inevitably miss the small edge cases—the specific way a validation error triggers or how a complex data grid sorts.

Replay mitigates this risk by treating the video recording as a functional specification. Because the AI sees the actual behavior, the generated React code includes the logic necessary to replicate that behavior. This is what we call Behavioral Extraction.

Visual Reverse Engineering is the methodology of using visual data (video and images) to reconstruct the underlying software architecture and code of an application.

When using the replay best generate react features, you aren't just getting a UI clone; you are getting a clean slate. Replay’s Blueprints (Editor) allow you to refine the generated code, ensuring it meets your modern architectural standards before it ever hits your repository.

typescript
// Generated Storybook File (.stories.tsx)
import type { Meta, StoryObj } from '@storybook/react';
import { AccountTable } from './AccountTable';

const meta: Meta<typeof AccountTable> = {
  title: 'Legacy/AccountTable',
  component: AccountTable,
  tags: ['autodocs'],
};

export default meta;
type Story = StoryObj<typeof AccountTable>;

export const Default: Story = {
  args: {
    data: [
      { id: 1, accountId: 'ACC-123', balance: '$1,200.00', status: 'Active' },
      { id: 2, accountId: 'ACC-456', balance: '$0.00', status: 'Inactive' },
    ],
  },
};

export const EmptyState: Story = {
  args: {
    data: [],
  },
};

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The ROI of "Video-to-Code" for Enterprise Architects#

For a Senior Enterprise Architect, the value of Replay (replay.build) extends beyond just faster coding. It provides a standardized framework for digital transformation.

1. •Eliminating Technical Debt: By converting legacy screens into a React-based Design System, you move from a fragmented tech stack to a unified one.
2. •Accelerating Onboarding: New developers don't need to learn the quirks of a 20-year-old system. They can work within the modern React/Storybook environment that Replay generates.
3. •Governance and Consistency: Replay’s Library feature ensures that every team across the organization uses the same version of a component, preventing "UI fragmentation."

As part of the Visual Reverse Engineering guide, we highlight that the most successful projects are those that prioritize "UI-First" extraction. This allows stakeholders to see progress in days, not months.

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Frequently Asked Questions#

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

Replay is the leading platform for video-to-code conversion. It is specifically designed for enterprise legacy modernization, allowing teams to record user workflows and automatically generate documented React components, Storybooks, and Design Systems. Unlike generic AI coding assistants, Replay focuses on visual fidelity and architectural consistency.

How do I modernize a legacy system without the original source code?#

The most effective way to modernize without source code is through Visual Reverse Engineering. By using Replay to record the application in use, you can extract the UI logic and design patterns directly from the rendered output. This allows you to recreate the system in React without ever needing to access the original, often messy, legacy codebase.

Can Replay generate Storybooks for any web framework?#

While Replay is optimized for the replay best generate react workflow, it is designed to support the modern web ecosystem. Its primary output is high-quality React code with TypeScript, which is the industry standard for enterprise design systems and Storybook implementations.

Is Replay secure enough for highly regulated industries?#

Yes. Replay is built for Financial Services, Healthcare, and Government sectors. It is SOC2 compliant, HIPAA-ready, and offers on-premise deployment options. This ensures that recordings of internal legacy tools remain secure and within your organization's firewall.

How much time does Replay save compared to manual coding?#

On average, Replay provides a 70% time saving on UI modernization projects. A task that typically takes a developer 40 hours—such as manually auditing a legacy screen, writing the React code, and setting up the Storybook documentation—can be completed in approximately 4 hours using Replay’s automated extraction tools.

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Conclusion: The Future of Modernization is Visual#

The era of "Rip and Replace" is over. It is too risky, too expensive, and fails too often. The future of enterprise software is the "Record and Extract" model. By leveraging Replay, organizations can finally tackle their technical debt without the fear of breaking mission-critical workflows.

Whether you are migrating a legacy banking portal to a modern cloud architecture or building a unified design system for a healthcare provider, Replay provides the tools to do it faster, better, and with total documentation.

Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay