Appending to an object

You can do this with Object.assign(). Sometimes you need an array, but when working with functions that expect a single JSON object -- such as an OData call -- I've found this method simpler than creating an array only to unpack it.

var alerts = { 
    1: {app:'helloworld',message:'message'},
    2: {app:'helloagain',message:'another message'}
}

alerts = Object.assign({3: {app:'helloagain_again',message:'yet another message'}}, alerts)

//Result:
console.log(alerts)
{ 
    1: {app:'helloworld',message:'message'},
    2: {app:'helloagain',message:'another message'}
    3: {app: "helloagain_again",message: "yet another message"}
} 

EDIT: To address the comment regarding getting the next key, you can get an array of the keys with the Object.keys() function -- see Vadi's answer for an example of incrementing the key. Similarly, you can get all the values with Object.values() and key-values pairs with Object.entries().

var alerts = { 
    1: {app:'helloworld',message:'message'},
    2: {app:'helloagain',message:'another message'}
}
console.log(Object.keys(alerts))
// Output
Array [ "1", "2" ]

jQuery $.extend(obj1, obj2) would merge 2 objects for you, but you should really be using an array.

var alertsObj = {
    1: {app:'helloworld','message'},
    2: {app:'helloagain',message:'another message'}
};

var alertArr = [
    {app:'helloworld','message'},
    {app:'helloagain',message:'another message'}
];

var newAlert = {app:'new',message:'message'};

$.extend(alertsObj, newAlert);
alertArr.push(newAlert);

How about storing the alerts as records in an array instead of properties of a single object ?

var alerts = [ 
    {num : 1, app:'helloworld',message:'message'},
    {num : 2, app:'helloagain',message:'another message'} 
]

And then to add one, just use push:

alerts.push({num : 3, app:'helloagain_again',message:'yet another message'});