fake save

adapters.application.js

import RESTAdapter from 'ember-data/adapters/rest';

export default RESTAdapter.extend({
  updateRecord(store, type, snapshot) {
    if (snapshot.adapterOptions.persist === false) {
      return true;
    } else {
      return this._super(...arguments);
    }
  }
});

models.my-model.js

import Model from "ember-data/model";
import attr from "ember-data/attr";
import { belongsTo, hasMany } from "ember-data/relationships";

export default Model.extend({
  foo: attr('string')
});

routes.application.js

import Ember from 'ember';

export default Ember.Route.extend({
  beforeModel() {
    this.store.push({
      data: {
        type: 'my-model',
        id: '12345',
        attributes: {
          foo: 'bar'
        }
      }
    });
  },

  model() {
    return this.store.peekRecord('my-model', '12345');
  },

  actions: {
    fakeSave() {
      const model = this.modelFor('application');
      model.save({ adapterOptions: { persist: false } });
    }
  }
});

templates.application.hbs

Foo: {{input value=model.foo}}<br>
Dirty: {{model.hasDirtyAttributes}}<br>
<button {{action 'fakeSave'}}>Fake Save</button>

twiddle.json

{
  "version": "0.9.1",
  "EmberENV": {
    "FEATURES": {}
  },
  "options": {
    "use_pods": false,
    "enable-testing": false
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "jquery": "https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.3/jquery.js",
    "ember": "2.6.0",
    "ember-data": "2.6.0",
    "ember-template-compiler": "2.6.0"
  }
}