metasploit-framework/data/README.md

This folder contains various data files used for a variety of purposes, including but not limited to banners for the console, exploit source code for exploits (under data/exploits), template code and binaries, wordlists and shellcode.

As a general rule of thumb this folder will most often be used when you are using compiled binaries or source code from other exploits for cases such as local privilege escalation exploits and need to provide the exploit code and compiled binaries so that maintainers can verify the binary and compile it themselves, as so that modules can find the R7 compiled version of the resulting binary for use during exploitation.