spokodev has created PR #4988: fix: preserve $meta direction in [field, direction] sort pair in node-mongodb-native
Implementation provided by the external reporter looks accurate. Tuple format of [Sort, SortDirection] fails on a valid member provided as the SortDirection { $meta: ... }

Use Case

As a driver user
I want to be able to sort by meta when providing sort pairs of field & direction 
So that I can leverage textscore sorting appropriately

User Experience

• Cursor sorts should be { $meta } aware as a sort direction when doing a sort off of pair values (e.g: public entry points of FindCursor.sort())
• Today: When trying to sort using $meta, sortdirection is essentially ignored (the sort semantics of a textscore are ignored entirely)
  Expected behaviour: Textscore should be honoured with a sort pair, not ignored as a consequence of wrapping the value in an array (improperly) when passed to prepareDirection

Dependencies

• N/A

Risks/Unknowns

• None

Acceptance Criteria

Implementation Requirements

•  Support meta in sortDirection

Testing Requirements

• Regression test for meta in sort direction should be added

Documentation Requirements

• No docs changes – this aligns with documentation
• Release note for the fix crediting user

Follow Up Requirements

• N/A