Both NumPy and SciPy use spin as a frontend to call meson and this can be used to setup a shell. The good thing is that invoking exit will return to the directory from which spin was run. To toggle between directories (e.g. a folder with a bug / issue reprex) and the rebuild quickly popd is useful.

 1# Generate reprex for bug
 2cd ~/Git/Github/BuggyNP/gh2322/
 3vim buggy.f90
 4python whatever.py
 5# whatever to reproduce the bug
 6cd ~/Git/Github/NumPy
 7# Make changes, rebuild
 8spin run $SHELL
 9popd
10# returned to the gh2322 folder, test
11python whatever.py
12exit
13# returns to NumPy root
14vim README.md
15spin run $SHELL
16popd
17# and so on...

Naturally these tools, and popd is more general and can be used for a lot more but this is pretty nifty too.