NpmTaskRunner | Visual Studio extension | Code Editor library

I have (freshly installed) Visual Studio Professional 2017 (V 15.9.4), a Visual Studio solution with with multiple projects, a single .sln file and package.jsons of the projects in the respective project folders exampleCoorp.API, exampleCoorp.UI, etc. The frontend project is written in React, the others in C#.

When I navigate to View > Other Windows > Task Runner Explorer (originally devolved by Mads Kristens, see marketplace.visualstudio.com). Since we also have a React part, I have the extension NPM Task Runner installed as well.

I am expected something like the following (screenshot from my team mates whose project-setup instruction I followed):

However, the actual result for me looks different:

The error I have to understand comes from the shown Visual Studio panel:

No task runner configurations are found.

But why? And more importantly, how can I fix it? Is there a workaround?

There is only a single google-hit [developercommunity.visualstudio.com] which claims that the (only?) cause could be a misplaced package.json file:

Both problems are caused by the fact that Visual Studio’s NPM integration does not support a package.json file that is in a subfolder instead of the project root. Microsoft’s own official Angular project template requires that the package.json be placed in the /ClientApp subfolder, which is not something that is going to change.

This is clearly not my issue here. Any help hint is appreciated!