Using AST's Expand in Light Party Duties

[Risvertasashi]

If you have a good way of determining how to know without use of the 3rd party, please let me know. I am genuinely curious.

You have 2 options ultimately.
1. Embrace the "don't ask, don't tell" policy and use a parser, but don't use it to shame people (which is what SE really cares about).
2. Play a subpar buffing AST, making 'best guesses'.

The nature of the job is you need to make informed decisions to play well.