Can I hide model properties from datasources in strongloop?

I would like to pass a "token" object to POST /MyObject. The easiest way to do that seems to be to add it as a property to MyObject.json. The problem is that this token is not persisted (it doesn't last for very long and there's no need to save it).

I figured out how to get around this issue for POST:

MyObject.beforeRemote('create', function (context, unused, nextFn) {
    var token = context.args.data.token;

    //We have to delete this so it doesn't try to put it in the database
    delete context.args.data.token;
    nextFn();
});

But the code crashes when I do a GET.

I tried just adding it as a second parameter to a new remote method, with MyObject as the first param, but after wrestling with strongloop for three hours and having nothing to show for it I gave up/

Is there any way to just add a property so that I can use it in node, but keep it from being persisted?

Solution

You can define a model just for representation.

//MyObjectInput.json
{
  "name": "MyObjectInput",
  "base": "Model",
  "idInjection": true,
  "options": {
    "validateUpsert": true
  },
  "properties": {
    "name": {
      "type": "string",
      "required": true
    },
    "token": {
      "type": "string"
    }
  ...
  },  
  "validations": [],
  "relations": {},
  "acls": [],
  "methods": {}
}


//MyObject.json
{
  "name": "MyObject",
  "base": "PersistedModel",
  "strict": true,
  "idInjection": true,
  "options": {
    "validateUpsert": true
  },
  "properties": {
    "name": {
      "type": "string",
      "required": true
    }
  ...
  },  
  "validations": [],
  "relations": {},
  "acls": [],
  "methods": {}
}

Please note that to sctrict key in MyObject.json. It denotes all defined properties should be persisted. Now you don't have token in MyObject definition, so it's not persisted.

//MyObject.js
MyObject.remoteMethod(
        'create', {
            accepts: [
                {
                    arg: 'data',
                    type: 'MyObjectInput',
                    http: {source: 'body'}
                }
            ],
            returns: {
                arg: 'result',
                type: 'object',
                root: true
            },
            http: {
                path: "/create",
                verb: 'post',
                status: 201
            }
        }
    );