For AMD, the microcode is automatically included in the dracut initramfs if [linux-firmware](https://www.archlinux.org/packages/core/any/linux-firmware/) is installed. You don't need to add `amd-ucode.img` to your boot loader configuration (in fact, it is not even necessary to install [amd-ucode](https://www.archlinux.org/packages/core/any/amd-ucode/), linux-firmware is enough).

For Intel, the microcode is currently not included in the dracut initramfs [due to packaging reasons](https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-general/2019-May/046395.html), so `intel-ucode.img` must be included first by the boot loader.

I cannot speak for AMD, but on Intel, the microcode update attempt would be logged as shown below:

    [    0.000000] microcode: microcode updated early to revision 0x27, date = 2019-02-26

So try not including it in the boot loader and see if you still have something similar logged...

You don't have to, you can just specify your microcode image first by adding it as the first initramfs, like so: `initrd=\amd-ucode.img initrd=\initramfs-linux-zen.img` However `dracut` includes it in by default for convenience, so that users don't have to specify that, nesting it in to another cpio archive, as you see. In fact, when I used Dracut, I preferred not to include microcode in, just in case the microcode package updated but the initramfs image did not.

I have been experimenting with dracut recently

Here is my lsinitrd

    Image: /boot/initramfs-dracut.img: 16M
    ========================================================================
    Early CPIO image
    ========================================================================
    drwxr-xr-x   3 root     root            0 Dec 14 13:57 .
    -rw-r--r--   1 root     root            2 Dec 14 13:57 early_cpio
    drwxr-xr-x   3 root     root            0 Dec 14 13:57 kernel
    drwxr-xr-x   3 root     root            0 Dec 14 13:57 kernel/x86
    drwxr-xr-x   2 root     root            0 Dec 14 13:57 kernel/x86/microcode
    -rw-r--r--   1 root     root         9700 Dec 14 13:57 kernel/x86/microcode/AuthenticAMD.bin
    ========================================================================
    Version: dracut-049        

Is amd-ucode included in the initramfs? And if so do I need to include amd-ucode in my bootloader (systemd-boot)

People using Dracut, do I need to include microcode in my bootloader