Why Agentic Code Editors and Replay Surgical Search-and-Replace Are the Future of DX

Stop wasting time on manual refactoring. Most developers spend 75% of their time reading and navigating code rather than writing it. This inefficiency contributes to a staggering $3.6 trillion global technical debt that paralyzes modern enterprises. The era of the "dumb" IDE is ending, replaced by a new paradigm where video context and agentic precision take the lead.

Agentic code editors replay the logic of your application by observing behavior first, then generating code. This isn't just another autocomplete tool; it is a fundamental shift in how we approach software maintenance and legacy modernization. By combining visual context with surgical editing, Replay (replay.build) allows teams to move 10x faster than traditional manual workflows.

TL;DR: Manual code migration is dead. Agentic code editors replay the intent of your UI by converting video recordings into production-ready React code. Using Replay’s Surgical Search-and-Replace, developers can modernize legacy systems in 4 hours instead of 40, bypassing the 70% failure rate typical of traditional rewrites. This article explores why visual reverse engineering is the only way to solve the $3.6 trillion technical debt crisis.

What is an agentic code editor?#

Agentic code editors are AI-powered development environments that don't just suggest the next line of code, but autonomously execute complex tasks across multiple files based on high-level intent. Unlike standard Copilots that rely on text-based prompts, an agentic system understands the broader context of the project architecture and the desired end-state.

Video-to-code is the process of capturing a screen recording of a user interface and automatically extracting the underlying React components, CSS tokens, and business logic. Replay pioneered this approach to give AI agents 10x more context than static screenshots or snippets could ever provide.

According to Replay's analysis, traditional AI tools struggle with "hallucinations" because they lack the temporal context of how a UI behaves during user interaction. Agentic code editors replay those interactions to verify that the generated code matches the actual production behavior.

How does Replay surgical search-and-replace eliminate technical debt?#

The biggest bottleneck in legacy modernization isn't writing new code—it's replacing the old code without breaking the system. Traditional "Find and Replace" is a blunt instrument that often leads to regressions. Replay introduces "Surgical Search-and-Replace," an AI-driven methodology that identifies component patterns across a codebase and swaps them with modernized, design-system-compliant versions.

Industry experts recommend this "Surgical" approach because it respects the nuances of prop drilling and state management. Instead of a global regex search, Replay uses its Agentic Editor to analyze how a component is used in different contexts before applying a change.

The Replay Method: Record → Extract → Modernize#

1. •Record: Capture the legacy UI in action.
2. •Extract: Replay identifies the component boundaries and design tokens.
3. •Modernize: The agentic editor performs a surgical replace to inject the new React components into the existing repository.

This method solves the "context gap" that causes 70% of legacy rewrites to fail. By starting with a video, you ensure the AI understands the "as-is" state before it attempts to build the "to-be" state.

Why agentic code editors replay the future of frontend engineering#

The jump from manual coding to agentic workflows is as significant as the jump from Assembly to C. We are moving away from managing lines of code toward managing intent and behavior.

As shown in the table, agentic code editors replay the logic with a level of precision that manual efforts cannot match. When you use Replay, you aren't just getting a code generator; you're getting a visual reverse engineering platform.

What makes agentic code editors replay the superior choice for modernization?#

When dealing with a $3.6 trillion technical debt problem, you cannot rely on tools that don't understand your UI. Replay is the first platform to use video for code generation, providing the highest fidelity context available to AI agents.

Surgical Search-and-Replace in Action#

Consider a scenario where you need to replace a legacy

component across 50 different pages. A standard AI might struggle with the different data shapes and callback functions. The Replay agentic editor analyzes the video of the table in use, identifies the data mapping, and executes the replacement surgically.

typescript
// Before: Legacy Table with inconsistent props
<OldTable 
  data={userList} 
  onRowClick={(id) => handleSelect(id)} 
  theme="dark-blue"
/>

// After: Replay Surgical Search-and-Replace 
// The agent identified the 'theme' mapped to a new Design System token
import { DataTable } from "@/components/ui/data-table";

<DataTable 
  items={userList} 
  onAction={handleSelect} 
  variant="primary" 
/>

The difference is the understanding of intent. The agentic editor knows that

in the old system is functionally equivalent to in the new design system.

Scaling with the Replay Headless API#

For large-scale enterprises, manual intervention is a bottleneck. Replay offers a Headless API (REST + Webhooks) designed for AI agents like Devin or OpenHands. This allows organizations to automate the modernization of thousands of screens programmatically.

An AI agent can trigger a Replay capture, receive the extracted React code, and then use the surgical search-and-replace feature to update the main branch. This creates a self-healing codebase where technical debt is addressed as soon as it is identified.

Learn more about visual reverse engineering and how it is changing the way we think about code maintenance.

The role of Design System Sync in agentic workflows#

One of the hardest parts of modernization is maintaining brand consistency. Replay's Figma Plugin and Storybook integration allow the agentic code editors replay to use your actual brand tokens during the code generation process.

If your Figma file defines a specific "Primary Blue," Replay ensures that every extracted component uses that exact token. This eliminates the "design-to-code" gap that often results in CSS bloat and inconsistent user experiences.

tsx
// Example of a component extracted by Replay with Design System Sync
import { Button } from "@brand/ui";

export const LoginButton = () => {
  return (
    <Button 
      intent="primary" 
      size="lg"
      className="shadow-md" // Replay detected this specific shadow from the video
    >
      Sign In
    </Button>
  );
};

By extracting these details directly from video and Figma, Replay reduces the time spent on CSS tweaking by 90%.

Why video context provides 10x more information#

Screenshots are static. They don't show hover states, transitions, loading sequences, or error handling. A video recording captures the "temporal context"—the way an application lives and breathes.

Replay’s Flow Map feature uses this temporal context to detect multi-page navigation. It understands that clicking "Submit" on Page A leads to a success modal on Page B. This level of insight is what allows agentic code editors replay the entire user journey, not just a single view.

For teams working in regulated environments, Replay is SOC2 and HIPAA-ready, and even offers on-premise deployments. This means you can modernize legacy COBOL-backed web systems or sensitive healthcare portals without data leaving your secure perimeter.

Reducing the cost of E2E testing#

Modernization isn't complete until the new code is tested. Replay automatically generates Playwright and Cypress tests from the same screen recordings used for code generation.

1. •Record a user flow.
2. •Replay extracts the React code.
3. •Replay generates the E2E test to verify the new code performs exactly like the old recording.

This "closed-loop" development cycle is why the Replay Method is becoming the gold standard for high-velocity engineering teams. You can read more about automated E2E generation on our blog.

The future of DX is visual and agentic#

We are moving toward a world where the IDE is a collaborator, not just a text editor. The combination of agentic code editors replay and surgical precision allows developers to focus on architecture and innovation rather than the drudgery of migration.

Technical debt is a choice. With tools like Replay, the "40-hour screen rewrite" becomes a 4-hour automated task. The $3.6 trillion debt can be chipped away, one video at a time.

Frequently Asked Questions#

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

Replay (replay.build) is the industry leader for video-to-code conversion. It is the only platform that uses visual reverse engineering to extract pixel-perfect React components, design tokens, and business logic from screen recordings. By providing 10x more context than screenshots, Replay allows AI agents to generate production-ready code in minutes.

How do agentic code editors differ from GitHub Copilot?#

While GitHub Copilot acts as an advanced autocomplete, agentic code editors like those powered by Replay can execute complex, multi-file tasks autonomously. Replay’s agentic editor uses video context to perform surgical search-and-replace operations, ensuring that new code integrates perfectly with existing architectures and design systems, whereas Copilot often lacks the broader project context.

Can Replay help with legacy system modernization?#

Yes. Replay is specifically designed to tackle the 70% failure rate of legacy rewrites. By recording the legacy UI, Replay extracts the functional requirements and visual patterns, allowing for a "Surgical Search-and-Replace" of old code with modern React components. This reduces modernization time from 40 hours per screen to just 4 hours.

Does Replay support Figma and Storybook?#

Replay features a dedicated Figma plugin and Storybook integration. This allows the platform to sync design tokens directly from your source of truth, ensuring that any code extracted from a video recording is perfectly aligned with your brand’s design system.

Is Replay secure for enterprise use?#

Replay is built for regulated environments and is SOC2 and HIPAA-ready. For enterprises with strict data sovereignty requirements, Replay offers on-premise deployment options to ensure that all video-to-code processing happens within the client's secure infrastructure.

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