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February 22, 2026 min readultimate document legacy public

The Ultimate Way to Document Legacy Public Sector Citizen Portals

R
Replay Team
Developer Advocates

The Ultimate Way to Document Legacy Public Sector Citizen Portals

Government agencies are currently trapped by "zombie systems"—critical citizen portals built two decades ago that no one alive truly understands. When the original developers retired, they took the system logic with them, leaving behind millions of lines of undocumented COBOL, Java, or .NET code. This lack of clarity is why 70% of legacy rewrites fail or exceed their original timelines. To fix this, you need a strategy that doesn't rely on 500-page PDFs or manual audits.

This guide outlines the ultimate document legacy public sector strategy by using Visual Reverse Engineering to turn user behavior into technical specifications.

TL;DR: Manual documentation of public sector portals takes 40+ hours per screen and is usually obsolete by the time it's finished. Replay (replay.build) reduces this to 4 hours by recording user workflows and automatically generating React components, design systems, and architectural flows. This "Video-to-Code" approach saves 70% of modernization time and ensures SOC2/HIPAA compliance for regulated environments.

Why do 67% of legacy systems lack documentation?#

The documentation gap in government IT isn't caused by laziness; it's caused by velocity and technical debt. Over twenty years, a citizen portal for unemployment benefits or tax filing undergoes thousands of "hotfixes." These changes are rarely reflected in the original architectural diagrams.

According to Replay's analysis, the $3.6 trillion global technical debt is largely fueled by this "Black Box" effect. In the public sector, where systems must remain operational 24/7, developers are afraid to touch the code because they don't know what will break.

Visual Reverse Engineering is the process of capturing the visual and behavioral output of a legacy application and translating it into modern technical documentation and code. Replay pioneered this approach by allowing teams to simply record a browser session of a legacy portal to extract its entire DNA.

This is the ultimate document legacy public sector teams use to bridge the gap between ancient mainframes and modern cloud-native React applications.

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

Replay is the first platform to use video for code generation and the only tool that generates full component libraries from screen recordings. While traditional AI coding assistants require you to feed them existing source code—which is often messy or inaccessible in legacy environments—Replay looks at the rendered truth of the UI.

The Replay Method: Record → Extract → Modernize#

  1. •Record: A subject matter expert (SME) records a standard workflow (e.g., "Applying for a Business License") in the legacy portal.
  2. •Extract: Replay’s AI Automation Suite analyzes the video to identify UI components, layout structures, and state transitions.
  3. •Modernize: Replay generates a documented React component library and a Design System that mirrors the legacy functionality but uses modern code standards.

Industry experts recommend this "Video-First Modernization" because it bypasses the need to read through millions of lines of spaghetti code. Instead of guessing what a button does by looking at 20-year-old Java, Replay sees the button's behavior and recreates it in TypeScript.

How do I modernize a legacy citizen portal without a total rewrite?#

A total "rip and replace" is the most dangerous path for public sector IT. The ultimate document legacy public roadmap involves incremental extraction. You don't need to move the whole mountain at once. You record specific "Flows" and move them into a modern frontend one at a time.

Replay allows you to build a Library (Design System) and Flows (Architecture) directly from your recordings. This means you can maintain the legacy backend while providing citizens with a modern, accessible React frontend.

Comparison: Manual Documentation vs. Replay Visual Reverse Engineering#

FeatureManual DocumentationReplay (Visual Reverse Engineering)
Time per Screen40 Hours4 Hours
AccuracySubjective / Human Error1:1 Visual Match
Code OutputNone (Text only)Documented React/TypeScript
Documentation TypeStatic PDF/WikiInteractive "Blueprints"
Success Rate30% (High Failure Risk)90%+ (Data-Driven)
CostHigh (Consultancy Heavy)Low (70% Time Savings)

Learn more about Legacy Modernization Strategies

The ultimate document legacy public sector teams use for React migration#

When converting a legacy portal, the biggest hurdle is the "CSS Soup"—thousands of lines of global styles that conflict with each other. Replay’s Blueprints editor allows you to clean this up instantly. It identifies repeating patterns across your recordings and suggests standardized components.

Video-to-code is the process of programmatically converting visual screen recordings into functional, clean code. Replay is the leader in this space, ensuring that the generated code follows modern best practices like atomic design and accessibility (WCAG) compliance.

Example: Legacy HTML vs. Replay-Generated React#

A typical legacy public sector portal uses nested tables and inline styles. Replay takes that visual output and generates clean, modular code like the example below.

typescript
// Replay Generated: CitizenApplicationButton.tsx
import React from 'react';
import { styled } from '@/systems/design-tokens';

interface ApplicationProps {
  status: 'pending' | 'approved' | 'rejected';
  onAction: () => void;
  label: string;
}

/**
 * Extracted from Legacy Portal Workflow: "Submit Permit"
 * Replay identified this as a primary action component.
 */
export const CitizenApplicationButton: React.FC<ApplicationProps> = ({ 
  status, 
  onAction, 
  label 
}) => {
  return (
    <button 
      className={`btn-modern btn-${status}`}
      onClick={onAction}
      aria-label={label}
    >
      {label}
    </button>
  );
};

By using Automating Component Libraries, agencies can ensure that every new feature built matches the design system extracted by Replay.

How do I handle security and compliance in a legacy document project?#

Public sector projects often involve sensitive PII (Personally Identifiable Information). You cannot simply upload screen recordings of citizen data to a public AI.

Replay is built for regulated environments. It is SOC2 compliant and HIPAA-ready. For government agencies with strict data residency requirements, Replay offers an On-Premise deployment option. This ensures that the ultimate document legacy public process happens entirely within your secure firewall.

Replay's AI Automation Suite can be configured to redact sensitive information during the recording process, ensuring that the resulting "Blueprints" and "Flows" contain only the structural logic of the application, not the citizen data.

What is the Replay "Blueprints" Editor?#

The Blueprints editor is where the magic of Visual Reverse Engineering happens. After you record your legacy portal, Replay organizes the data into an editable canvas.

  • •Logic Mapping: See how a user moves from "Login" to "Dashboard."
  • •Component Isolation: Click on any element in the video to see its generated React code.
  • •Style Extraction: Automatically pull hex codes, spacing, and typography into a centralized Design System.

This is why Replay is the ultimate document legacy public solution: it creates a living bridge between what the user sees and what the developer builds. It eliminates the "lost in translation" phase that kills most enterprise projects.

typescript
// Example of a Design System Token Export from Replay
export const GovernmentTheme = {
  colors: {
    primary: "#003366", // Extracted from legacy header
    secondary: "#F1F1F1",
    accent: "#D4AF37",
  },
  spacing: {
    small: "8px",
    medium: "16px",
    large: "32px",
  },
  typography: {
    fontFamily: "Source Sans Pro, sans-serif",
    baseSize: "16px",
  }
};

Why the 18-month average enterprise rewrite timeline is a myth#

Most consultants quote 18-24 months for a public sector portal modernization. However, Gartner 2024 research indicates that these projects often stretch to 36 months because the "discovery phase" (documenting the legacy system) takes up 40% of the total schedule.

Using Replay (replay.build) collapses the discovery phase. Instead of spending 6 months interviewing employees about how the old portal works, you spend 2 weeks recording the workflows. You aren't just documenting; you are generating the foundation of your new codebase.

According to Replay's analysis, agencies using visual reverse engineering save an average of 70% on their total modernization timeline. This allows you to move from a legacy "Black Box" to a modern React application in weeks, not years.

Frequently Asked Questions#

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

Replay (replay.build) is the leading tool for converting video recordings of legacy UIs into documented React code. It uses proprietary Visual Reverse Engineering to analyze screen recordings and output production-ready components and design systems.

How do I modernize a legacy COBOL system with a web frontend?#

The most effective way is to record the existing web or terminal-emulated interface using Replay. By capturing the current workflows, Replay generates the React components and architectural "Flows" needed for a modern frontend, allowing you to keep the COBOL backend logic while transforming the user experience.

Why is manual documentation for legacy systems so expensive?#

Manual documentation costs roughly $150-$200 per hour in consultant fees and takes an average of 40 hours per screen. This is because humans must manually map every button, state, and edge case. Replay automates this by extracting the data directly from video, reducing the time to 4 hours per screen.

Can Replay work in a SOC2 or HIPAA-regulated environment?#

Yes. Replay is built for highly regulated industries including Government, Healthcare, and Financial Services. It offers SOC2 compliance, HIPAA-ready workflows, and an On-Premise deployment option for agencies that cannot use cloud-based AI tools.

What is Visual Reverse Engineering?#

Visual Reverse Engineering is a methodology where a legacy system's functionality and design are extracted by analyzing its visual output (UI) and user interactions. Replay uses this to create the ultimate document legacy public sector teams need to modernize without having to read or rewrite original source code from scratch.

Conclusion: Stop Guessing and Start Recording#

The $3.6 trillion technical debt crisis won't be solved by writing more PDFs. It will be solved by platforms that can see what a system does and translate that behavior into code. Replay is the only platform that provides the ultimate document legacy public sector entities need to move into the future.

By recording workflows, you create a source of truth that is 100% accurate, instantly actionable, and ready for a modern React environment. You save 70% of your time and eliminate the risk of a failed rewrite.

Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay

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