diff --git a/mlir/include/mlir/IR/MLIRContext.h b/mlir/include/mlir/IR/MLIRContext.h
--- a/mlir/include/mlir/IR/MLIRContext.h
+++ b/mlir/include/mlir/IR/MLIRContext.h
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@
 class InFlightDiagnostic;
 class Location;
 class MLIRContextImpl;
+class PassManager;
 class StorageUniquer;
 DialectRegistry &getGlobalDialectRegistry();
 
@@ -169,6 +170,12 @@
 
   MLIRContext(const MLIRContext &) = delete;
   void operator=(const MLIRContext &) = delete;
+
+  /// These APIs are tracking whether a PassManager is running in order to
+  /// detect misuse of some APIs.
+  friend class PassManager;
+  void passManagerStart();
+  void passManagerExit();
 };
 
 //===----------------------------------------------------------------------===//
diff --git a/mlir/lib/IR/MLIRContext.cpp b/mlir/lib/IR/MLIRContext.cpp
--- a/mlir/lib/IR/MLIRContext.cpp
+++ b/mlir/lib/IR/MLIRContext.cpp
@@ -264,6 +264,11 @@
   /// Enable support for multi-threading within MLIR.
   bool threadingIsEnabled = true;
 
+  /// Track if we are currently executing a threaded pass-manager: this is only
+  /// a debugging feature to help reducing the chances of data races one some
+  /// context APIs.
+  std::atomic<int> passManagersRunning = 0;
+
   /// If the operation should be attached to diagnostics printed via the
   /// Operation::emit methods.
   bool printOpOnDiagnostic = true;
@@ -487,6 +492,8 @@
   if (!dialect) {
     LLVM_DEBUG(llvm::dbgs()
                << "Load new dialect in Context" << dialectNamespace);
+    assert(impl.passManagersRunning == 0 &&
+           "Loading a dialect while the PassManager is running");
     dialect = ctor();
     assert(dialect && "dialect ctor failed");
     return dialect.get();
@@ -527,6 +534,9 @@
   impl->typeUniquer.disableMultithreading(disable);
 }
 
+void MLIRContext::passManagerStart() { ++impl->passManagersRunning; }
+void MLIRContext::passManagerExit() { --impl->passManagersRunning; }
+
 /// Return true if we should attach the operation to diagnostics emitted via
 /// Operation::emit.
 bool MLIRContext::shouldPrintOpOnDiagnostic() {
diff --git a/mlir/lib/Pass/Pass.cpp b/mlir/lib/Pass/Pass.cpp
--- a/mlir/lib/Pass/Pass.cpp
+++ b/mlir/lib/Pass/Pass.cpp
@@ -751,12 +751,18 @@
   // Construct an analysis manager for the pipeline.
   ModuleAnalysisManager am(module, instrumentor.get());
 
+  // Notify the context that we start running a pipeline for book keeping.
+  module.getContext()->passManagerStart();
+
   // If reproducer generation is enabled, run the pass manager with crash
   // handling enabled.
   LogicalResult result = crashReproducerFileName
                              ? runWithCrashRecovery(module, am)
                              : OpPassManager::run(module, am);
 
+  // Notify the context that the run is done.
+  module.getContext()->passManagerExit();
+
   // Dump all of the pass statistics if necessary.
   if (passStatisticsMode)
     dumpStatistics();
diff --git a/mlir/test/lib/Transforms/TestConvertCallOp.cpp b/mlir/test/lib/Transforms/TestConvertCallOp.cpp
--- a/mlir/test/lib/Transforms/TestConvertCallOp.cpp
+++ b/mlir/test/lib/Transforms/TestConvertCallOp.cpp
@@ -34,6 +34,10 @@
 class TestConvertCallOp
     : public PassWrapper<TestConvertCallOp, OperationPass<ModuleOp>> {
 public:
+  void getDependentDialects(DialectRegistry &registry) const final {
+    registry.insert<LLVM::LLVMDialect>();
+  }
+
   void runOnOperation() override {
     ModuleOp m = getOperation();