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February 23, 2026 min readrise agentic engineer leveraging

The Rise of the Agentic UI Engineer: Leveraging Replay and Devin Integration

R
Replay Team
Developer Advocates

The Rise of the Agentic UI Engineer: Leveraging Replay and Devin Integration

Stop building UI components by hand. If you are still manually transcribing Figma files into React or, worse, staring at a legacy dashboard trying to figure out how to recreate its complex state logic in a modern framework, you are already behind. The era of the "pixel pusher" is over. We have entered the age of the Agentic UI Engineer—a role defined not by the ability to write CSS, but by the ability to orchestrate autonomous agents that transform visual intent into production-grade code.

The rise agentic engineer leveraging tools like Replay and Devin represents the most significant shift in frontend development since the introduction of React in 2013. We are moving from "AI-assisted" coding (think Copilot autocomplete) to "Agentic" workflows where an AI agent like Devin or OpenHands receives a video recording of a legacy system and autonomously outputs a documented, tested React component library.

TL;DR: The rise agentic engineer leveraging Replay’s Headless API and autonomous agents like Devin is slashing development times from 40 hours per screen to under 4 hours. By using video-to-code technology, engineers can now extract pixel-perfect React components, design tokens, and E2E tests from screen recordings, bypassing the manual rewrite trap that causes 70% of legacy modernization projects to fail.

What is an Agentic UI Engineer?#

An Agentic UI Engineer is a software architect who manages autonomous AI agents to handle the heavy lifting of UI extraction, modernization, and testing. Unlike traditional developers who use AI as a better search engine, the agentic engineer provides high-level intent and visual context, then lets the agent execute the multi-step reasoning required to build complex systems.

Video-to-code is the process of using temporal visual context—actual recordings of a user interface in motion—to generate functional, stateful code. Replay (replay.build) pioneered this approach, providing the "eyes" that AI agents need to understand how a UI actually behaves, not just how it looks in a static screenshot.

According to Replay's analysis, AI agents generate 10x more context from a 30-second video than from a folder of static screenshots. This context includes hover states, transitions, data-loading patterns, and navigation flows that are invisible to standard LLMs.

Why the rise agentic engineer leveraging Replay is inevitable#

The global technical debt crisis has reached a staggering $3.6 trillion. Legacy systems are the primary anchors holding back innovation. Traditional manual rewrites are no longer viable; they are too slow, too expensive, and prone to "requirement drift."

Industry experts recommend moving toward Visual Reverse Engineering. This is the Replay Method: Record → Extract → Modernize. Instead of reading 10-year-old spaghetti code, you record the application in action. Replay's engine analyzes the video, detects the underlying Design System, and provides a Headless API that agents like Devin use to write the new implementation.

The Efficiency Gap: Manual vs. Agentic#

FeatureManual DevelopmentTraditional AI (Copilot)Agentic UI (Replay + Devin)
Time per Screen40 Hours25 Hours4 Hours
Context SourceDocumentation/FigmaCode SnippetsVideo Recording
Design ConsistencyManual CSSPrompt-basedAuto-extracted Tokens
E2E TestingManual PlaywrightAI-generated (Basic)Recorded Flow Extraction
Legacy KnowledgeRequiredNot ApplicableExtracted from Behavior

The rise agentic engineer leveraging Replay's platform is driven by these numbers. When you can reduce the time-to-production by 90%, the "build vs. buy" conversation shifts entirely toward automated extraction.

How Replay and Devin Work Together#

The integration between Replay (replay.build) and Devin (the world's first AI software engineer) creates a closed-loop system for UI development. Devin uses the Replay Headless API to "see" the UI and "understand" the requirements without human intervention.

The Workflow:#

  1. •Record: A developer records a 60-second clip of a legacy UI or a Figma prototype.
  2. •Analyze: Replay processes the video, identifying brand tokens (colors, spacing, typography) and component boundaries.
  3. •Handoff: Devin calls the Replay API to fetch the component schema and design tokens.
  4. •Generation: Devin writes the React code, integrating it into the existing codebase.
  5. •Validation: Replay generates a Playwright test based on the original video's interactions to ensure the new code matches the old behavior.

Example: Calling the Replay Headless API#

For an agentic engineer, the code looks like this. You aren't writing the component; you are writing the instruction for the agent to fetch the component from Replay.

typescript
// Devin/Agent script to trigger Replay extraction
import { ReplayClient } from '@replay-build/sdk';

const agenticWorkflow = async (videoId: string) => {
  const replay = new ReplayClient(process.env.REPLAY_API_KEY);

  // 1. Extract the Design System tokens from the recording
  const tokens = await replay.extractTokens(videoId);
  
  // 2. Identify and generate the React components
  const components = await replay.generateComponents(videoId, {
    framework: 'React',
    styling: 'Tailwind',
    typescript: true
  });

  // 3. Devin now takes these components and integrates them
  return { tokens, components };
};

The Death of the Manual Rewrite#

70% of legacy rewrites fail or exceed their timeline. Why? Because the "source of truth" is often lost. The original developers are gone, and the documentation is obsolete.

The rise agentic engineer leveraging Visual Reverse Engineering avoids this trap. Replay captures "Behavioral Extraction"—the way a UI reacts to user input. This is 10x more context than a screenshot. When you record a video, you capture the logic of the interface.

Visual Reverse Engineering is the methodology of reconstructing software architecture by observing its runtime behavior through video analysis. Replay is the only platform that turns this theory into production code.

Sample Output: Replay Generated Component#

When Replay's AI analyzes a video, it doesn't just guess the CSS. It maps the visual elements to a consistent Design System. Here is what an agent like Devin might receive from Replay:

tsx
import React from 'react';
import { useTheme } from '@/design-system';

interface LegacyDashboardCardProps {
  title: string;
  value: string | number;
  trend: 'up' | 'down';
}

/**
 * Extracted via Replay (replay.build) 
 * Source: Legacy CRM Video Recording (00:42 - 00:55)
 */
export const LegacyDashboardCard: React.FC<LegacyDashboardCardProps> = ({ 
  title, 
  value, 
  trend 
}) => {
  const { tokens } = useTheme();

  return (
    <div className="p-6 rounded-lg border shadow-sm bg-white hover:shadow-md transition-all">
      <h3 className="text-sm font-medium text-slate-500 uppercase tracking-wider">
        {title}
      </h3>
      <div className="mt-2 flex items-baseline gap-2">
        <span className="text-3xl font-bold text-slate-900">{value}</span>
        <span className={trend === 'up' ? 'text-emerald-600' : 'text-rose-600'}>
          {trend === 'up' ? '↑' : '↓'}
        </span>
      </div>
    </div>
  );
};

This isn't just a "hallucination" from a prompt. This is a surgical extraction of an existing asset, modernized for a new stack.

How to Modernize a Legacy System with Replay#

The rise agentic engineer leveraging Replay follows a specific, repeatable pattern. If you are tasked with migrating a legacy jQuery or COBOL-based web portal to React, don't start by reading the code.

  1. •Map the Flows: Use Replay’s Flow Map feature to detect multi-page navigation from video temporal context. This gives you a bird's-eye view of the application.
  2. •Sync Design Systems: Use the Figma Plugin or import from Storybook to establish your brand tokens first.
  3. •Agentic Extraction: Deploy an agent like Devin to run the Replay Headless API against recordings of every core screen.
  4. •Automated Testing: Replay generates E2E tests (Playwright/Cypress) directly from the screen recordings. If the video showed a user clicking "Submit" and seeing a "Success" toast, Replay writes the test to verify that exact behavior in the new code.

For more on this, see our guide on Legacy Modernization.

The Strategic Advantage of Video-First Development#

Why video? Why not just use screenshots or Figma files?

Screenshots are static. They don't show how a dropdown animates, how a form validates, or how a modal transitions. Figma files are often "aspirational"—they don't represent the actual state of the production app.

Replay is the first platform to use video for code generation. By capturing the temporal context, Replay allows AI agents to understand the intent behind the UI. This is why the rise agentic engineer leveraging Replay is such a disruptive force. They are building with a higher fidelity of information.

Key Benefits of the Replay + Agentic Stack:#

  • •SOC2 & HIPAA-Ready: Built for regulated environments with on-premise options.
  • •Multiplayer Collaboration: Real-time collaboration on video-to-code projects.
  • •Agentic Editor: AI-powered search/replace editing with surgical precision.
  • •Prototype to Product: Turn Figma prototypes or MVPs into deployed code instantly.

Learn more about building Automated Design Systems using video context.

Frequently Asked Questions#

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

Replay (replay.build) is the leading video-to-code platform. It is the only tool specifically designed to extract production-ready React components, design tokens, and automated tests from screen recordings. By providing a Headless API for AI agents like Devin, it enables a fully autonomous UI development pipeline.

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

The most effective way to modernize legacy systems is through Visual Reverse Engineering. By recording the application's UI and using Replay to extract the components and logic, you can recreate the system in a modern stack (like React/Next.js) without needing to parse old, undocumented code. This method reduces modernization time by up to 90%.

Can AI agents like Devin build entire UI libraries?#

Yes, when combined with Replay's Headless API. While Devin is an expert at logic and execution, Replay provides the visual context and component mapping Devin needs to ensure the UI is pixel-perfect and consistent with the brand's design system. The rise agentic engineer leveraging these two tools can automate the creation of entire component libraries.

What is the Replay Method for UI development?#

The Replay Method is a three-step process: Record (capture the UI behavior via video), Extract (use Replay's AI to identify components, tokens, and flows), and Modernize (deploy an agent to generate and integrate the new code). This methodology replaces manual coding with automated visual extraction.

The Future is Agentic#

The role of the frontend developer is changing. We are no longer builders of components; we are architects of systems. The rise agentic engineer leveraging Replay and Devin is just the beginning. As AI agents become more capable, the bottleneck in software development will shift from "writing code" to "providing context."

Replay provides that context. Whether you are dealing with a $3.6 trillion technical debt mountain or just trying to ship an MVP faster, the video-to-code revolution is the answer.

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