Extracting React apps from Figma Make's undocumented binary format
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HN · launched Jan 23, 2026 · 55 upvotes (top 18%) · 0 views
Niche: design and ui code converters · 30 launches, 5 in the last 7 days · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Dev tools
- Developer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 30 launches in design and ui code converters →
Could you build this?
No Reverse-engineering proprietary undocumented binary formats involving custom schema decoders (Kiwi), decompression algorithms, and AST reconstruction requires specialized reverse engineering and binary analysis expertise.
What it would actually take: This project requires binary disassembly, protocol reverse engineering, inspecting in-memory heap structures, and reconstructing serialization schemas (like Figma's proprietary Kiwi format and zstandard/brotli compression layers). The resulting tool must parse raw byte streams, map them to an internal component tree, and generate idiomatic React JSX code. This requires senior reverse engineers and compiler/AST specialists who understand binary file structures.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: lovable.dev - AI code generation with cleaner output, Figma Make - prototyping tool, binwalk - file analysis tool
Concerns raised: LLM-generated work presented without disclosure undermines credibility, AI authorship obscures human judgment and decision-making, Lack of transparency about tool usage in technical articles, Difficulty understanding AI-generated code without detailed review, AI tools produce code rather than design artifacts like illustrations
Feature requests: Automatic identification of file chunk types (deflate, zstd), Cleaner code output across multiple iterations, Extract design tokens for design systems
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 829 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #141 of 830 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 84 days after the earliest competitor.
- React-Rewrite · hn · 2026-03-30 · 7 upvotes · similarity 0.59
- Royalty free UI avatars for Figma/React · hn · 2026-09-03 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.52
- OunceCake · github · 2026-10-25 · 517 upvotes · similarity 0.52
- Open source React Native debugging studio · hn · 2026-08-01 · 7 upvotes · similarity 0.48
- Lume.js · hn · 2025-12-23 · 7 upvotes · similarity 0.48
- JSX Tool: In-Browser React IDE · yc · 2025-11-09 · 53 upvotes · similarity 0.48
- Write native binary web apps with TypeScript and Express · hn · 2026-02-16 · 14 upvotes · similarity 0.48
- textjs · github · 2026-11-02 · 106 upvotes · similarity 0.48
The niche, labels, vibe code rating and competitor comparison on this page are analysis by Nicheloom. If you use them, please credit nicheloom.com. How you may use our data.