diff --git a/mlir/lib/Debug/DebugCounter.cpp b/mlir/lib/Debug/DebugCounter.cpp
--- a/mlir/lib/Debug/DebugCounter.cpp
+++ b/mlir/lib/Debug/DebugCounter.cpp
@@ -110,10 +110,8 @@
 /// various flags within the DebugCounter. These flags are used when
 /// constructing a DebugCounter for initialization.
 void DebugCounter::registerCLOptions() {
-#ifndef NDEBUG
   // Make sure that the options struct has been initialized.
   *clOptions;
-#endif
 }
 
 bool DebugCounter::isActivated() {
diff --git a/mlir/test/mlir-opt/debugcounter.mlir b/mlir/test/mlir-opt/debugcounter.mlir
--- a/mlir/test/mlir-opt/debugcounter.mlir
+++ b/mlir/test/mlir-opt/debugcounter.mlir
@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 // This test exercises the example in docs/ActionTracing.md ; changes here
 // should probably be reflected there.
 
-// REQUIRES: asserts
 // RUN: mlir-opt %s -mlir-debug-counter=unique-tag-for-my-action-skip=-1 -mlir-print-debug-counter --pass-pipeline="builtin.module(func.func(canonicalize))" --mlir-disable-threading 2>&1 | FileCheck %s --check-prefix=CHECK-UNKNOWN-TAG
 // RUN: mlir-opt %s -mlir-debug-counter=pass-execution-skip=1 -mlir-print-debug-counter --pass-pipeline="builtin.module(func.func(canonicalize))" --mlir-disable-threading 2>&1 | FileCheck %s --check-prefix=CHECK-PASS