`xl.meta` is a new self describing backend format used by MinIO to support AWS S3 compatible versioning. This file is the source of truth for each `version` at rest. `xl.meta` is a msgpack file serialized from a well defined data structure. To understand `xl.meta` here are the few things to start with
`xl.meta` carries first 8 bytes an XL header which describes the current format and the format version, allowing the unmarshaller's to automatically use the right data structures to parse the subsequent content in the stream.
Once the header is validated, we proceed to the actual data structure of the `xl.meta` format. `xl.meta` carries three types of object entries which designate the type of version object stored.
A sample msgpack-JSON `xl.meta`, you can debug the content inside `xl.meta` using [xl-meta-to-json.go](https://github.com/minio/minio/blob/master/docs/bucket/versioning/xl-meta-to-json.go) program.