The Difference

Why the File-by-File Approach Falls Short

Tools like GitHub Copilot take a Strangler Fig approach — migrating the application file by file, leaning on whatever unit tests already exist to validate each piece. That works for greenfield rewrites of small modules. It breaks down on real enterprise applications.

Basic AI Approach

Copilot / File-by-File Migration

One file migrated at a time. Each migrated file validated against existing unit tests — if they exist.

  • Requires pre-existing unit tests to validate correctness
  • No tests means no safety net — migration is unverified
  • File-level scope misses cross-module and integration behavior
  • Real user workflows never captured or tested end-to-end
  • Edge cases not exercised by existing tests stay invisible
  • Manual effort scales with codebase size — no compounding return
VS
The Testing Pipeline

Four Stages. Increasing Confidence at Every Step.

The pipeline runs sequentially. Each stage builds on the last. Two stages are always applied — they are the core of what makes our testing work. One stage is optional but high-impact, and one is a targeted boost when conditions allow.

Core — always applied Optional — high impact when available
1

Semantic Flow Analysis

Core

Deterministic tools + LLMs build a complete picture of application behavior before any migration begins.

Our deterministic analysis tools parse the entire application — every page, every code-behind file, every shared library — building a structural graph of the solution. An LLM then analyzes the output of those tools to extract intent: the business rules, user flows, data interactions, and implicit state machines that the code encodes but never explicitly documents.

The result is a specification of what the application does, expressed independently of how it does it. This specification is the source from which all test cases are generated.

  • AST-level parse of all source files — no guessing
  • User flow mapping: entry points, transitions, exits
  • Business rule extraction — implicit logic made explicit
  • Data shape inference — what types move between UI and DB
  • Cross-file and cross-project dependency tracing
  • Edge case identification from conditional branches
💡

The key insight: You don't need existing test cases to generate test cases. You need to understand what the application does — and that is exactly what this step produces. Pre-existing tests, if you have them, are incorporated as an additional signal — not a prerequisite.

feeds into
2

Runtime Instrumentation & Workflow Capture

Optional — High Impact

Embed lightweight instrumentation in the live application to capture real user workflows — with full privacy protection.

Static analysis tells you what the application can do. Runtime capture tells you what it actually does in production. When access to the running original application is available, we embed a lightweight, read-only instrumentation library that observes user interactions over a period of time — capturing the actual sequences, inputs, and state transitions that real users perform every day.

🔒

Privacy-first by design — built into the instrumentation layer.

All captured data passes through a privacy filter before it is stored anywhere. Real values are never recorded. The instrumentation captures only the shape of data: a string of 12 characters, a date within a certain range, an integer between two values. Your users' actual data never leaves your environment — not to us, not to any third party.

What it captures

  • Real user workflow sequences
  • Actual data types and value ranges
  • Rare code paths that static analysis misses
  • Load patterns and concurrency behavior

What it never captures

  • Real names, emails, or identifiers
  • Actual financial or medical values
  • Any data that can be reverse-mapped to a real user
  • Anything transmitted outside your environment
📈

Coverage impact: Applications often have hundreds of code paths that never appear in developer-written test cases because developers don't know those paths exist. Runtime capture surfaces them automatically — dramatically increasing the fidelity and completeness of the generated test suite.

enriches
3

Isolated Environment Replication

Core

A fully automated replica of the original runtime environment — including a generated test database — for safe, repeatable execution.

Tests can only be meaningful if they run in a controlled environment. We automate the construction of an isolated replica of the original application's runtime — same framework version, same configuration, same external dependencies stubbed to known behavior. Critically, this environment runs both the original application and the migrated application in parallel, enabling direct output comparison at the HTTP, DOM, and data layer.

🗄

Auto-Generated Test Database

A realistic test database is generated automatically from the data shapes captured in Stages 1 and 2. It has the right structure, the right value ranges, and the right relational integrity — without containing a single piece of real user data.

Side-by-Side Comparison

The original and migrated applications run simultaneously against the same test database. Every response, every output, every database write is compared — divergences are flagged precisely, not just reported as pass/fail.

🏗

The isolated environment is fully reproducible. Tests can be run repeatedly — during active development, after every batch of migrations, and during final acceptance — without touching production data or infrastructure at any point.

executes in
4

Automated Test Creation & Execution

Core

Tests generated from everything gathered, then executed end-to-end against the migrated application. Functional equivalence, scored per flow.

Our tooling consumes the full output of the previous stages — the semantic model from Stage 1, enriched with real workflow traces from Stage 2 where available — and generates a complete, executable test suite. These tests do not assert unit-level implementation details. They assert functional equivalence: given the same input, does the migrated application produce the same result as the original?

  • End-to-end tests that exercise full user flows
  • Data-driven: each test runs against multiple realistic input sets
  • Equivalence assertion at HTTP response, DOM output, and DB state
  • Functional equivalence score per feature and per flow
  • Divergence reports pinpoint exactly where behavior differs
  • Tests run continuously as migration progresses — not just at the end
🎯

The goal is 100% functional equivalence. In practice, some residual manual testing will be needed — subjective UI behavior and edge cases that no tool can fully anticipate. But the more of this pipeline that runs, the smaller that residual becomes. And for most applications, what remains is a known, bounded, manageable surface — not an open-ended unknown.

Coverage Impact

Each Stage Increases Confidence

The pipeline compounds. Every stage builds on the last, expanding the coverage of the generated test suite in ways that no single approach can achieve alone.

Basic AI migration with pre-existing unit tests
~30%
Stage 1 only semantic flow analysis
~55%
Stages 1 + 3 + 4 core pipeline, no runtime capture
~75%
Full pipeline — all 4 stages with runtime workflow capture
>90%

Functional equivalence coverage estimates based on internal project data. Results vary by application complexity, size, and available runtime access.

What This Means for Your Migration

Known Risk. Bounded Residual. Confident Delivery.

No Starting-Point Dependency

Your migration is not held hostage by the quality of your existing test coverage. Whether you have thousands of unit tests or none at all, we build the test foundation from first principles. Pre-existing tests are an accelerant — not a gate.

Manual Testing Becomes Targeted

Manual QA effort is not eliminated — it is focused. The automated pipeline identifies exactly where equivalence gaps remain, so your testers spend time on the cases the tools cannot resolve — not re-validating what is already verified.

The more of this pipeline that runs in your environment, the smaller the manual surface becomes — and the more confident every stakeholder can be at go-live.

Start Here

Want to See What Coverage We Can Generate for Your Application?

Every engagement starts with a free assessment. We will analyze your codebase, identify the test generation approach that applies to your situation, and give you a realistic estimate of the equivalence coverage we can achieve — before you commit to anything.