A recording mechanism is disclosed for automatically capturing high level events on user interface (UI) components of a set of software. In one implementation, the recording mechanism registers with a UI component to receive notification when an event occurs on the UI component. When an event does occur, the recording mechanism receives notification thereof from the UI component. In one implementation, the notification includes some high level event-specific information. After the notification is received, the recording mechanism creates and stores a record of the event, which includes at least a portion of the event-specific information, as well as information indicating the UI component as the target of the event. The record may further include information indicating a component hierarchy in which the UI component is contained. Overall, the record contains all of the information needed to reproduce the event on the UI component of the software at a later time.