i assume if i press "f" here on "pickup" in a magit rebase the pick should be changed to "fixup" instead, nothing happens.

apparently this is a known issue. one workaround seems to be to manually entre rebase mode.

when your done with that rebase prompt, how do you continue? i would expect there to be some instructions about how to "continue" with the rebase. If i try magit-rebase-continue it tells me some nonesense.

hmm maybe the nonsense was something i did though. lets try this again

When in doubt, I press r to continue when the rebase is back in the magit-status buffer. Not sure if that was what you were asking (apart from wanting f to work 🙂 )

Yep, pressing r to get the rebase options makes sense. I would just like it to be a bit guided of an experience i suppose. The big deal is that the rebase buffer loads as in "insert mode" one work around is pressing Ctrl-Z to switch in and out of the insert mode and to the correct mode

I assume the magit rebase buffer needs to be evilified as is already done to the magit status buffer. Sounds like an issue feature request on the Spacemacs repo.