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Why not put an assertion, then add a test that deliberately checks if it's triggered?

The comment that I replied to was about using assertions instead of tests. You can certainly write an assertion and test it after, but unless it is absolutely necessary I would prefer to avoid polluting the code with "documentation". The right place for that is in the unit tests, not in the middle of production code.

I disagree, the right place is in the code where the functionality is defined. And the comment you replied to i didn't read as "assertions instead of tests". That's absurd. You should have tests that exercise the code that contains the assertions. It's the best of both worlds. You get code automatically tested and you get inline documentation that can't lie to you.

I say code the happy path, and then have assertions.

Saves writing 12 unit tests that show passing null breaks the code. No one cares about that.

And the comment train I was on was using unit test for documentation on valid inputs and outputs.

Asserts are documentations on valid inputs and outputs that very cleanly break when violated.

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