The src/node/ directory contains code that needs to access node state (state in CChain, CBlockIndex, CCoinsView, CTxMemPool, and similar classes).

Code in src/node/ is meant to be segregated from code in src/wallet/ and src/qt/, to ensure wallet and GUI code changes don't interfere with node operation, to allow wallet and GUI code to run in separate processes, and to perhaps eventually allow wallet and GUI code to be maintained in separate source repositories.

As a rule of thumb, code in one of the src/node/, src/wallet/, or src/qt/ directories should avoid calling code in the other directories directly, and only invoke it indirectly through the more limited src/interfaces/ classes.

The src/node/ directory is a new directory introduced in #14978 and at the moment is sparsely populated. Eventually more substantial files like src/validation.cpp and src/txmempool.cpp might be moved there.