I am trying to add a property to a sequelize instance before passing it back to the client.
router.get(\'/cats/1\', function (req, res) {
Cat.findOne({w
The Sequelize Model class (of which your cats are instances) has a toJSON() method which res.json will presumably use to serialise your cats. The method returns the result of Model#get() (https://github.com/sequelize/sequelize/blob/95adb78a03c16ebdc1e62e80983d1d6a204eed80/lib/model.js#L3610-L3613), which only uses attributes defined on the model. If you want to be able to set the cats name, but not store names in the DB, you can use a virtual column when defining your cat model:
sequelize.define('Cat', {
// [other columns here...]
name: Sequelize.VIRTUAL
});
Alternatively, if you don't want to add properties to the model definition:
cat = cat.toJSON(); // actually returns a plain object, not a JSON string
cat.name = 'Macavity';
res.json(cat);