diff --git a/console-subscriber/Cargo.toml b/console-subscriber/Cargo.toml
index d3c414e3b..c5700e2d6 100644
--- a/console-subscriber/Cargo.toml
+++ b/console-subscriber/Cargo.toml
@@ -25,9 +25,10 @@ keywords = [
 ]
 
 [features]
-default = ["env-filter"]
+default = ["env-filter", "tokio_unstable_assertion"]
 parking_lot = ["parking_lot_crate", "tracing-subscriber/parking_lot"]
 env-filter = ["tracing-subscriber/env-filter"]
+tokio_unstable_assertion = []
 
 [dependencies]
 
diff --git a/console-subscriber/src/lib.rs b/console-subscriber/src/lib.rs
index 6b0c1a75e..dc3df66d2 100644
--- a/console-subscriber/src/lib.rs
+++ b/console-subscriber/src/lib.rs
@@ -263,6 +263,7 @@ impl ConsoleLayer {
         // The `cfg` value *appears* to be a constant to clippy, but it changes
         // depending on the build-time configuration...
         #![allow(clippy::assertions_on_constants)]
+        #[cfg(feature = "tokio_unstable_assertion")]
         assert!(
             cfg!(tokio_unstable),
             "task tracing requires Tokio to be built with RUSTFLAGS=\"--cfg tokio_unstable\"!"