Well, presumably the root directory of a code repo does contains drawers (directories) other than ".meta/", e.g. sources in "src/", headers in "include/", asset

Well, presumably the root directory of a code repo does contains drawers (directories) other than ".meta/", e.g. sources in "src/", headers in "include/", assets in "assets/", etc. I think the point of ".meta" is the drawer for config files of _tools_. And these tools, depending on the language and the ecosystem, might not fall into neat subdirectories like "installers", or "linters". Some compiler comes with their own packaging system, and some with their own linter. ".meta/{tool_name}.{ext}" or ".meta/{tool_name}/*.{ext}" should be sufficient in that regard. (Though I do prefer ".config" over ".meta")