Visual Workflow Mining: The Non-Invasive Path to System Modernization

The average enterprise rewrite takes 18 months, costs millions, and has a 70% chance of failure. For the modern CTO, legacy modernization isn't just a technical challenge—it’s a high-stakes gamble with a $3.6 trillion global technical debt overhang. The traditional "Big Bang" rewrite is a relic of an era when we had the luxury of time and complete documentation. Today, 67% of legacy systems lack any form of usable documentation, leaving architects to perform "code archaeology" on black boxes they didn't build and can't easily decommission.

Visual Workflow Mining represents a fundamental shift in this paradigm. Instead of spending months reading obfuscated COBOL or decompiling Java 6 binaries, we are now using video as the primary source of truth for reverse engineering. By recording real user interactions, we can extract the underlying business logic, UI state, and API requirements without touching a single line of legacy code.

TL;DR: Visual Workflow Mining bypasses the 18-month "archaeology" phase of modernization by using video recordings to automatically generate documented React components and API contracts, reducing project timelines by an average of 70%.

The Failure of Manual Code Archaeology#

The industry standard for modernization is broken. When an organization decides to move from a legacy monolith to a modern micro-frontend architecture, they typically follow a predictable, failing path:

1. •Discovery: Analysts interview users who have forgotten half the edge cases.
2. •Archaeology: Developers dive into undocumented codebases to find hidden business logic.
3. •Manual Mapping: Architects spend 40+ hours per screen manually documenting state transitions.
4. •The Rewrite: Coding begins on a system that is already drifting from the original's functionality.

This manual approach is why 70% of legacy rewrites exceed their timelines or fail entirely. We are trying to reconstruct a 3D object by looking at its shadow. Visual Workflow Mining changes this by capturing the "living" system in motion.

The Cost of Tradition vs. Visual Workflow Mining#

💰 ROI Insight: Manual reverse engineering typically consumes 40 hours per screen. With Replay, this is reduced to 4 hours—a 90% reduction in labor costs for the discovery phase alone.

What is Visual Workflow Mining?#

Visual Workflow Mining is the process of using computer vision and runtime analysis to observe user interactions with a legacy system and translate those interactions into modern technical specifications. It treats the legacy UI as the ultimate specification. If the system does it on screen, it must be captured in the new architecture.

Replay facilitates this by recording a user’s session and breaking it down into its atomic parts:

• •The Component Layer: Identifying buttons, inputs, and tables to create a standardized Design System.
• •The State Layer: Mapping how data changes as a user moves through a form.
• •The Integration Layer: Capturing the network calls triggered by UI actions to generate API contracts.

From Black Box to Documented Codebase#

The "Black Box" problem occurs when the original developers have left, the documentation is lost, and the source code is too fragile to modify. Visual Workflow Mining treats the legacy application as a black box and extracts the "intent" of the software.

⚠️ Warning: Relying solely on legacy source code for modernization often leads to "bug-for-bug" compatibility, where you accidentally port 20-year-old technical limitations into a brand-new React framework.

The Replay Architecture: Library, Flows, and Blueprints#

To execute Visual Workflow Mining at scale, Replay utilizes a three-pillar approach that transforms raw video into a functional, modern frontend.

1. The Library (Design System Generation)#

Instead of manually building a new UI kit, Replay identifies recurring visual patterns across your legacy screens. It extracts these patterns and generates a standardized React component library. This ensures visual consistency and prevents the "component sprawl" common in large-scale migrations.

2. Flows (Architecture Mapping)#

Flows represent the "nervous system" of your application. By mining multiple user sessions, Replay maps the navigational paths and decision trees. This produces a visual architecture map that serves as the blueprint for your new micro-services or micro-frontends.

3. Blueprints (The AI Automation Suite)#

This is where the extraction happens. Replay’s AI analyzes the recorded video and the DOM state to generate production-ready code. This isn't just "low-code" scaffolding; it's clean, typed TypeScript that preserves the complex business logic discovered during the mining process.

typescript
// Example: React component extracted via Replay Visual Workflow Mining
// Original: Legacy ASP.NET WebForms "CustomerPortal.aspx"
// Target: Modern React + Tailwind + Zod Validation

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import { useForm } from 'react-hook-form';
import { z } from 'zod';

// Business logic preserved from legacy interaction mining
const schema = z.object({
  accountNumber: z.string().min(10).max(12),
  transactionType: z.enum(['ACH', 'WIRE', 'INTERNAL']),
  amount: z.number().positive(),
});

export const LegacyTransactionMigrated: React.FC = () => {
  const { register, handleSubmit, errors } = useForm({
    resolver: zodResolver(schema),
  });

  // Replay extracted the exact API payload structure from legacy network traces
  const onSubmit = async (data: any) => {
    const response = await fetch('/api/v1/legacy-bridge/transaction', {
      method: 'POST',
      body: JSON.stringify({
        legacy_id: "TX_9921", // Preserved legacy mapping
        ...data
      }),
    });
    return response.json();
  };

  return (
    <div className="p-6 bg-white rounded-lg shadow-md">
      <h2 className="text-xl font-bold mb-4">Transfer Funds</h2>
      <form onSubmit={handleSubmit(onSubmit)} className="space-y-4">
        <input {...register('accountNumber')} placeholder="Account Number" className="border p-2 w-full" />
        {/* Component styling mapped from Replay Design System Library */}
        <select {...register('transactionType')} className="border p-2 w-full">
          <option value="ACH">ACH</option>
          <option value="WIRE">Wire Transfer</option>
        </select>
        <button type="submit" className="bg-blue-600 text-white px-4 py-2 rounded">
          Execute Transfer
        </button>
      </form>
    </div>
  );
};

Step-by-Step: Implementing Visual Workflow Mining#

Modernizing a complex system in a regulated environment (Financial Services, Healthcare, etc.) requires a disciplined approach. Here is how to move from a legacy screen to a modern component using Replay.

Step 1: Recording the Source of Truth#

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) or actual users perform their daily tasks while Replay records the session. This isn't just a screen recording; it’s a high-fidelity capture of the DOM, network requests, and state changes.

Step 2: Visual Extraction and Identification#

Replay’s AI suite analyzes the recording to identify UI patterns. It differentiates between static elements, dynamic data inputs, and navigation triggers.

Step 3: API Contract Generation#

While the UI is being mapped, Replay observes the data flowing between the frontend and backend. It automatically generates OpenAPI/Swagger specifications for the legacy endpoints, creating a "contract" that the new frontend will use to communicate with the existing backend (or its replacement).

yaml
# Generated API Contract from Visual Workflow Mining
openapi: 3.0.0
info:
  title: Legacy Bridge API
  version: 1.0.0
paths:
  /api/v1/legacy-bridge/transaction:
    post:
      summary: Extracted from CustomerPortal.aspx workflow
      requestBody:
        content:
          application/json:
            schema:
              type: object
              properties:
                legacy_id: {type: string}
                accountNumber: {type: string}
                transactionType: {type: string}
                amount: {type: number}

Step 4: Component Generation and Testing#

The extracted data is fed into the Blueprints engine, which outputs React components. Simultaneously, Replay generates End-to-End (E2E) tests based on the original user workflow to ensure functional parity between the old and new systems.

💡 Pro Tip: Use the generated E2E tests as a "Parity Gate." If the new component doesn't pass the workflow captured from the legacy system, it isn't ready for production.

Addressing the "Black Box" Concerns#

When I speak to Enterprise Architects about Visual Workflow Mining, they often raise three primary concerns: logic preservation, security, and scalability.

Business Logic Preservation#

The fear is that "visual" mining misses the deep backend logic. However, Replay captures the inputs and outputs of that logic. By documenting the state transitions in the UI, we effectively document the requirements for the backend. We aren't just copying the UI; we are documenting the functional requirements of the entire system through its usage.

Security in Regulated Environments#

Modernizing systems in Healthcare (HIPAA) or Finance (SOC2) requires strict data handling. Replay is built for these environments, offering On-Premise deployments and PII-masking during the recording phase. This ensures that while you are mining workflows, you aren't compromising sensitive data.

Scalability and Technical Debt#

A common mistake in modernization is creating "new" technical debt by using AI to generate "spaghetti code." Replay avoids this by grounding its generation in a centralized Library (Design System). Every component generated follows the same architectural patterns, ensuring the new codebase is maintainable and scalable.

The Future Isn't Rewriting—It's Understanding#

We have spent decades building systems that we no longer understand. The $3.6 trillion technical debt is a result of this understanding gap. The future of enterprise architecture isn't found in hiring 500 developers to manually rewrite a mainframe application in Java. It’s found in automated understanding.

Visual Workflow Mining allows us to bridge the gap between "what the system does" and "how the code works." By using Replay, enterprises can finally move at the speed of the market rather than the speed of their legacy release cycles.

Frequently Asked Questions#

How long does legacy extraction take?#

While a manual rewrite takes 18–24 months, a pilot project with Replay typically shows results in days. A full-scale migration of a complex enterprise module (approx. 50–100 screens) can be completed in 8–12 weeks, including documentation and testing.

What about business logic preservation?#

Replay captures the observable business logic—how the system responds to specific data inputs. For deep backend logic (e.g., complex calculations in a stored procedure), Replay provides the API contracts and E2E tests needed to validate that the new backend logic matches the legacy output exactly.

Can Replay handle mainframe or terminal-based systems?#

Yes. As long as there is a web-based or desktop-based UI layer that users interact with, Replay can mine the workflows. For systems that have been "web-enabled" via terminal emulators, Replay is particularly effective at stripping away the old interface and generating a modern React-based experience.

Does this replace my development team?#

No. Replay is a force multiplier for your existing architects and developers. It automates the tedious, error-prone phases of discovery, documentation, and scaffolding, allowing your senior talent to focus on high-level architecture and complex integration challenges.

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