Yaird (Yet Another mkInitRD) is an application to create an initial boot image, a minimal filesystem used to bring a booting Linux kernel to a level where it can access the root file system and use startup scripts to bring the system to the normal run level. It differs from earlier mkinitrd implementations in that it attempts to leverage the information in sysfs to minimise the number of special cases that the application has to know about, and in that it uses a template system to separate the analysis of the system from the building of the image. This document gives an overview of the design and implementation of Yaird; see the README file for usage information. This text assumes familiarity with Linux system administration and the basics of hotplug and sysfs. This document describes version &VERSION; of Yaird. This is a very rough, proof of concept, version.