error TRK0005: Failed to locate: "CL.exe"

I went to \Users\[my-user]\.windows-build-tools - an install file for VS Build-tools was there (for 2017 it's vs_BuildTools.exe), I ran and installed it.

After that I ran npm install --global --production windows-build-tools ("Option 1" from here).

Then it worked.

I went into Visual Studio and created a Visual C++ project, which installed several libraries. npm install worked after that.