I see in the source code that the recipes that get modified is hardcoded:

modifyRecipe("burner-mining-drill", "electric-mining-drill")
modifyRecipe("burner-inserter", "inserter")
modifyRecipe("steel-furnace", "electric-furnace")
modifyRecipe("stone-furnace", "steel-furnace")
modifyRecipe("pistol", "submachine-gun")
modifyRecipe("shotgun", "combat-shotgun")
modifyRecipe("power-armor", "power-armor-mk2")
modifyRecipe("modular-armor", "power-armor")
modifyRecipe("heavy-armor", "modular-armor")
modifyRecipe("light-armor", "heavy-armor")
modifyRecipe("boiler", "heat-exchanger")
modifyRecipe("steam-engine", "steam-turbine")

this is ok for vanilla but will not be broadly compatible with other mods. Is it possible to infer the dependencies for a more robust solution?

Otherwise, nice job. This mod is a great idea. I'm hoping it will compliment https://mods.factorio.com/mod/recursive-science. Perhaps recursive-science can be helpful in sussing out the dependencies.?

I don't see how it's possible to infer what's an upgrade of something else, since it's entirely based on the function of things and arguably based on thematics.

The boiler and heat exchanger technically do different jobs due to their outputs, but it makes sense to have that as the upgrade path since nuclear power is the logical upgrade to steam power. This is a purely thematic upgrade due to the different jobs.

The mining drill and inserter upgrades are both pre-tech, so you won't be able to infer upgrades on tech alone.

There also needs to be consideration for how this impacts building a base. Right now I'm trying it out as-is to see what the impact of needing raw stone as a factory input is, since stone furnaces are needed for both electric mining drills and steel furnaces (production science).

I would also potentially need to add in new intermediate conversions, similar to stone and steel, depending on what mods are being used.