I just did four commits using webkit-trunk -g, each one targeting a treeish below my current HEAD http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/80925 http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/80924 http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/80923 http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/80922 And each one added the commit message to the same (incorrect) bug. It seems that webkit-patch -g uses the commit message for the current HEAD, even when it is committing a treeish which is not HEAD.