Drush command needs higher bootstrap level - Pantheon Drush Alias Setup I just setup pantheon for one of my websites. So far I've done the following and the site works fine:

Version Drush: 5.3
Local Dev: Ubuntu 12.04


Git clone the repo to my local desktop
Copy the pantheon.aliases.php file to the .drush directory at ~/home


Now when i do a drush @pan.chouse.dev pm-list I get the following error. 


~/websites/pan-chouse$ drush @pan.chouse.dev pm-list

Command pm-list needs a higher bootstrap level to run - you will need    [error]
to invoke drush from a more functional Drupal environment to run thiscommand.

The drush command 'pm-list' could not be executed.                       [error]
The directory /home/drupalpro/websites/pan-chouse does not contain a     [error]
valid Drupal installation



I also did a drush @pan.chouse.dev status and I get this:


  ~/websites/pan-chouse$ drush @pan.chouse.dev status  PHP
  configuration   : 
  /srv/bindings/a59cd0c1631747ef8cda2b5e88fc5124/php.ini
                          /srv/bindings/a59cef8cda2b5e88fc5124/php.ini    Drush
  version       :  5.10.0
  Drush               : 
  /srv/bindings/a59cd8cda2b5e88fc5124/drushrc.
  configuration          php


I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing wrong as it should technically work.
While sites on Pantheon don't require a settings.php file in order to serve web requests, due to the fact that database credentials are dynamically injected, they will still need a settings.php configuration file present in order to enable the remote execution of Drush commands. With Drush 5 installed locally, there is unexpected behavior with Pantheon aliases run from inside a local Drupal docroot. In addition, the --strict=0 option needs to be appended to most commands when using Drupal 6 on your local dev environment.

Source: Drush error “Could not find a Drupal settings.php file” or missing system information from status