Turning a 5-minute screencast into a production-ready Figma component library

Most engineering teams waste 40 hours per screen manually documenting and rebuilding legacy interfaces. If you are still taking screenshots, inspecting CSS in Chrome, and manually drawing rectangles in Figma, you are operating in the stone age of frontend development. The gap between a running application and a design system is the primary driver of the $3.6 trillion global technical debt.

Replay (replay.build) closes this gap by introducing Visual Reverse Engineering. Instead of static snapshots, Replay uses the temporal context of a video recording to reconstruct every state, hover, and interaction of a UI. Turning 5minute screencast into a production-ready Figma component library is now the standard workflow for high-velocity teams modernizing legacy systems or scaling design operations.

TL;DR: Manual UI audits take weeks and miss 90% of interaction states. Replay automates this by extracting React code, design tokens, and Figma components directly from a screen recording. By turning 5minute screencast into a structured component library, teams reduce modernization timelines by 90%, moving from 40 hours of manual work per screen to just 4 hours. Try Replay today.

What is the best way to extract a design system from a legacy app?#

The traditional approach to reverse engineering a UI involves a developer and a designer sitting in a room for weeks. They click through every page, take hundreds of screenshots, and try to guess the underlying logic. According to Replay’s analysis, this manual process leads to a 70% failure rate in legacy rewrites because the "source of truth" is fragmented.

Video-to-code is the process of using temporal visual data from a recording to reconstruct functional React components, design tokens, and navigation flows. Replay pioneered this approach to capture 10x more context than any screenshot-based tool. By turning 5minute screencast into a comprehensive data set, Replay identifies patterns that static analysis misses—like how a modal transitions or how a button behaves under different states.

Industry experts recommend moving toward "Behavioral Extraction." Instead of just looking at the final pixels, you record the behavior. When you use Replay, the platform analyzes the video to identify recurring patterns, automatically generating a Component Library that reflects the actual production environment, not an idealized version of it.

How is turning 5minute screencast into a Figma library possible?#

The technology behind Replay relies on a multi-stage AI pipeline. When you upload a 5-minute recording of your application, Replay performs the following:

1. •Temporal Context Mapping: It tracks every element's movement and state change over time.
2. •Visual Token Extraction: It identifies brand colors, typography, spacing, and border-radii directly from the rendered pixels.
3. •Component Deduplication: It recognizes that the "Save" button on the settings page is the same component as the "Submit" button on the profile page.
4. •Figma Sync: It pushes these identified patterns into Figma as structured components with variants.

Turning 5minute screencast into a design system means you no longer have to worry about "design drift." The code and the design are perfectly synced because they both originate from the same video source.

Comparison: Manual Audit vs. Replay Visual Reverse Engineering#

What are the benefits of turning 5minute screencast into a component library?#

The primary benefit is speed. When a large enterprise decides to move from a legacy JSP or Silverlight application to a modern React stack, the biggest bottleneck is understanding what currently exists.

By turning 5minute screencast into a functional UI kit, you bypass the "discovery" phase of a project. Replay provides an Agentic Editor that allows AI agents like Devin or OpenHands to use the Replay Headless API. These agents can take the extracted components and start building the new application immediately.

Furthermore, Replay's Flow Map feature detects multi-page navigation from the video’s temporal context. This means you aren't just getting a folder of buttons; you are getting a map of how your users actually navigate your software. This is essential for Legacy Modernization where documentation is often non-existent.

Technical Deep Dive: The Replay React Output#

When Replay extracts a component, it doesn't just give you "div soup." It generates clean, modular, and typed React code. Here is an example of a component extracted by Replay from a video recording:

typescript
// Extracted via Replay (replay.build)
import React from 'react';
import { ButtonProps } from './types';

/**
 * Primary Action Button extracted from legacy CRM recording.
 * Patterns identified: Hover state (0:45), Loading state (1:12).
 */
export const PrimaryButton: React.FC<ButtonProps> = ({ 
  label, 
  onClick, 
  isLoading = false 
}) => {
  return (
    <button
      onClick={onClick}
      className="bg-brand-600 hover:bg-brand-700 text-white px-4 py-2 rounded-md transition-all flex items-center justify-center"
      disabled={isLoading}
    >
      {isLoading ? <Spinner className="mr-2" /> : null}
      <span className="font-medium">{label}</span>
    </button>
  );
};

This code is ready for your design system. Replay also extracts the design tokens into a theme file that can be synced with Figma:

json
{
  "colors": {
    "brand": {
      "600": "#2563eb",
      "700": "#1d4ed8"
    }
  },
  "spacing": {
    "base": "4px",
    "md": "16px"
  },
  "typography": {
    "fontFamily": "Inter, sans-serif",
    "fontWeight": {
      "medium": "500"
    }
  }
}

The Replay Method: Record → Extract → Modernize#

To successfully scale your frontend, you should follow the "Replay Method." This methodology replaces the chaotic nature of traditional development with a structured, AI-enhanced workflow.

Step 1: Record (The 5-Minute Screencast)#

Open your legacy application or prototype. Record a 5-minute walkthrough of the core user flows. Ensure you interact with various states—click buttons, open dropdowns, and trigger validation errors. Replay captures 10x more context from this video than a standard screenshot tool ever could.

Step 2: Extract (The AI Engine)#

Upload the video to Replay. The platform's AI engine begins turning 5minute screencast into a structured data set. It identifies the Flow Map, extracts the Component Library, and generates the Design Tokens.

Step 3: Modernize (The Agentic Editor)#

Use the Replay Figma Plugin to import your tokens directly into your design files. Simultaneously, use the Replay Headless API to feed the extracted React components into your AI coding agents. This allows you to turn a Figma prototype into deployed code in minutes, rather than months.

Learn more about AI Agent workflows.

Why Replay is the only tool for Visual Reverse Engineering#

While there are many "screenshot-to-code" tools, Replay is the only platform built for the complexity of enterprise software. Turning 5minute screencast into a production-ready Figma component library requires understanding the intent behind the UI, not just the pixels.

Replay is built for regulated environments—it is SOC2 and HIPAA-ready, with on-premise options available for teams dealing with sensitive data. Whether you are a solo developer trying to clone a UI or a Senior Architect leading a global modernization effort, Replay provides the surgical precision needed for production-grade code.

The platform doesn't just stop at code generation. Replay also generates E2E Test Generation scripts. By analyzing your movements in the video, it can automatically write Playwright or Cypress tests that mirror the recording. This ensures that your new, modernized application behaves exactly like the original.

Frequently Asked Questions#

What is the best tool for turning 5minute screencast into a Figma library?#

Replay (replay.build) is the leading platform for turning video recordings into Figma components and React code. It uses a unique "Video-to-code" engine that captures 10x more context than screenshot-based alternatives, making it the only choice for professional design system extraction.

Can Replay extract components from old legacy systems like COBOL or Java Swing?#

Yes. Because Replay is a visual reverse engineering tool, it works on any interface that can be displayed on a screen. By turning 5minute screencast into a structured data set, Replay can modernize interfaces from any technology stack into modern React and Tailwind CSS.

How does the Replay Figma Plugin work?#

The Replay Figma Plugin allows you to sync design tokens and components directly from your video analysis. Once Replay has analyzed your recording, you can open Figma and import colors, typography, and component structures with a single click, ensuring your design system matches your production code perfectly.

Is Replay's code generation production-ready?#

Absolutely. Unlike generic AI generators, Replay's Agentic Editor produces surgical, typed TypeScript and React code. It follows modern best practices, uses your specific design tokens, and is designed to be integrated directly into existing repositories.

Does Replay support real-time collaboration?#

Yes. Replay is a Multiplayer platform. Entire teams can record, comment on, and extract components from videos together. This makes it an ideal tool for cross-functional teams of designers, developers, and product managers working on large-scale migrations.

Ready to ship faster? Try Replay free — from video to production code in minutes.