Dynamic includes in node API with Sequelize

Question

I am creating a node API connecting to a mySql db using Sequelize. I want users of the API to be able to specify which models to include in the results of a query. For example I have a model like this:

Student.init({
    userID: DataTypes.INTEGER,
    name: DataTypes.STRING,
    gradeID: DataTypes.INTEGER
}

I want the user to be able to specify if they want to include the full User and/or Grade objects when querying Students like this:

http://localhost/api/students?include=Grade,User

How would I go about doing this within the controller using Sequelize?

Anatoly · Accepted Answer · 2025-06-19 21:23:34Z

I'd start with something like this:

Define all needed associations with explicit aliases
Make a dictionary of model descriptions with: resource name (from url) as a key, and a model reference and and a dictionary as values with query param name as a key and an object as a value with an association alias and its model reference
On a request extract a resource name and `include` query param values and use both of them to get a model reference and all included models with their respective aliases.

Something like:


const modelDescriptions = {
  "students": {
    "model": Student,
    "Grade": {
       "model": Grade,
       "alias": "Grade"
    },
    "User": {
       "model": User,
       "alias": "User"
    },
  }
}

const modelDesc = modelDescriptions[resourceName]
const model = modelDesc.model
const includeOptions = includeQueryParamValues.map(x => ({
  model: modelDesc[x].model,
  as: modelDesc[x].alias
}))
const items = await model.findAll({
  include: includeOptions
})

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