Execute bash scripts on entering a directory

You can make cd a function, and make it detect if you enter that particular directory.

cd () {
  builtin cd "$@"
  case $PWD in
    /some/directory) . ./projectSettings.bash;;
  esac
}

Do not do this in directories that you haven't whitelisted, because it would make it very easy for someone to trick you into running arbitrary code — send you an archive, so you unzip it, change into the directory it created, and you've now run the attacker's code.

I don't recommend this approach, because it means the script will be executed even if you enter that directory for some reason that's unrelated to working on the project. I suggest having a specific function that changes to the project directory and sources the settings script.

myproj () {
  cd /some/directory && . ./projectSettings.bash
}