What is the meaning of the /dist directory in open source projects?

Question

To answer your question:

Folder structure varies by build system and programming language. Here are some standard conventions:

src/: “source” files to build and develop the project. This is where the original source files are located, before being compiled into fewer files to dist/, public/ or build/.
dist/: “distribution”, the compiled code/library, also named public/ or build/. The files meant for production or public use are usually located here.

There may be a slight difference between these three:
- build/: is a compiled version of your src/ but not a production-ready.
- dist/: is a production-ready compiled version of your code.
- public/: usually used as the files runs on the browser. which it may be the server-side JS and also include some HTML and CSS.
assets/: static content like images, video, audio, fonts etc.
lib/: external dependencies (when included directly).
test/: the project’s tests scripts, mocks, etc.
node_modules/: includes libraries and dependencies for JS packages, used by Npm.
vendor/: includes libraries and dependencies for PHP packages, used by Composer.
bin/: files that get added to your PATH when installed.

Markdown/Text Files:

README.md: A help file which addresses setup, tutorials, and documents the project. README.txt is also used.
LICENSE.md: any rights given to you regarding the project. LICENSE or LICENSE.txt are variations of the license file name, having the same contents.
CONTRIBUTING.md: how to help out with the project. Sometimes this is addressed in the README.md file.

Specific (these could go on forever):

package.json: defines libraries and dependencies for JS packages, used by Npm.
package-lock.json: specific version lock for dependencies installed from package.json, used by Npm.
composer.json: defines libraries and dependencies for PHP packages, used by Composer.
composer.lock: specific version lock for dependencies installed from composer.json, used by Composer.
gulpfile.js: used to define functions and tasks to be run with Gulp.
.travis.yml: config file for the Travis CI environment.
.gitignore: Specification of the files meant to be ignored by Git.