We report a high-resolution photoemission study of Au evaporated on rf-sputtered a-Si:H at room temperature. Three regions of coverage can be classified according to the behavior of the valence-band and core-level spectra: an unreacted region with an equivalent thickness of 2 Å, followed by an intermixed Au/a-Si overlayer (∼9 Å), and a dual-phase region at higher coverage. Au adatoms are dispersed in the unreacted region. They subsequently cluster in the intermixed region, where they attach to Si atoms that are not hydrogen bonded, suggesting that the intermixed Si is mainly from those that have dangling bonds. In the dual-phase region, two sets of Au 4f core levels evolve with higher binding energy, one from Au intermixed with Si, and the lower one exhibiting pure gold character. The interface eventually ends up with the sequence: a-Si:H(sub.)+(pure Au mixed with intermixed Au/Si)+(vac). This is unlike the case of Au on c-Si, which has a pure gold layer sandwiched by intermixed Au/Si complexes along the surface normal. Traces of silicon atoms on top of composite surfaces appear even at the highest coverage, 205 Å, of the gold deposit. The applicability of the four models previously used for the Au/c-Si interface is also briefly discussed.