Six to Adam, one to Noach
They are called the laws of Noah, but the Rambam counts them in two stages.
Six were given to Adam (Hilchot Melachim 9:1): idolatry, cursing God, murder, forbidden relationships, theft, and courts. Every one of them is available to a person the moment there is more than one person.
The seventh had nothing to attach to yet. Adam was not permitted to eat meat at all, so a rule about how you may eat it had no subject. When Noach comes out of the ark, meat is permitted for the first time, and the permission arrives with a limit attached in the same breath: אַךְ־בָּשָׂר בְּנַפְשׁוֹ דָמוֹ לֹא תֹאכֵלוּ, "but flesh with its life, its blood, you shall not eat" (Bereishit 9:4). Six plus one makes seven.
The Rambam then traces the line forward: Avraham is given circumcision on top of these, Yitzchak adds tithing, Yaakov the sciatic nerve, and it keeps growing until Moshe, when the Torah is complete. The seven are not a leftover. They are the base that everything else was built on.
All seven, from one verse
Rabbi Yochanan reads every phrase of the first command ever given to a human being as pointing to one of the seven. Tap any phrase.
"And Hashem God commanded the man, saying: of every tree of the garden you may surely eat." (Bereishit 2:16)
The Gemara records that when Rav Yitzchak came from Eretz Yisrael he taught two of these in reverse: וַיְצַו pointing to idolatry and אֱלֹהִים to courts, since judges are themselves called אֱלֹהִים in Shemot 22:7. Either way the seven come out of the same verse.
The source text
The list itself, as the Gemara states it.
The order here is the Gemara's, which opens with courts. The Rambam lists them in a different order, opening with idolatry, and that is the order used further up this page. Neither ordering is a ranking.
The ones that did not make the list
Seven is the accepted count. It was not the only proposal.
These appear on Sanhedrin 56b immediately after the beraita. None entered the count of seven, but they are not thrown out either: they record real positions about how far the universal obligation reaches, and some are taken up in later halachic discussion.
Who is a chasid of the nations
The Rambam's answer, and the reason it is argued about.
The halacha continues with a condition: that a person accept and do them because God commanded them in the Torah and made them known through Moshe, rather than by their own reasoning alone. Someone who arrives at the same seven purely by working it out is, in the standard printed text, not counted among the pious of the nations.
That last clause is one of the more discussed lines in the Mishneh Torah. The printed editions read וְלֹא מֵחַכְמֵיהֶם, "nor of their wise men." A number of manuscripts read אֶלָּא מֵחַכְמֵיהֶם, "but rather of their wise men," which turns the sentence from an exclusion into a lesser category. Both readings have been defended by serious people. We are flagging the variant rather than deciding it.
What this is, and what it is not
It is not a path into Judaism. Judaism does not run a mission, and the seven are not a starter kit. They are what the Torah says is asked of a non-Jew as a non-Jew, permanently. Conversion is a separate matter entirely, and traditionally a beit din discourages it before accepting it.
It is not a lesser deal. The Rambam's line above is unambiguous about the share in the world to come. There is a well known formulation that a non-Jew keeping seven and a Jew keeping six hundred and thirteen are each doing the job assigned to them. Different obligations, not different worth.
A Noahide today is not a ger toshav. Ger toshav is a formal status accepted before a beit din, and the Rambam holds it can only be conferred while the Jubilee is in effect, which it is not (Hilchot Avodah Zarah 10:6). The obligations are unchanged; the legal category is not available.
Seven headings are not seven sentences. Each of the seven opens into real detail, and the details are argued about: what counts as shituf, which relationships are included, how far dinim reaches. This page is an orientation and a set of sources, not a psak. Anything you intend to act on belongs with a rav who knows the question and knows you.
Questions people actually ask
Why are they called the laws of Noah and not the laws of Adam?
Because Noach is the point where humanity restarts and the set is complete. Six of them were already given to Adam, but the seventh arrives only after the flood, when meat is permitted. Everyone alive descends from Noach, so naming them after him is also the clearest way of saying who they apply to: everyone.
Is there anything a Noahide should do, rather than only avoid?
Within the seven, only dinim is positive: build courts and run justice. But the Rambam (Hilchot Melachim 10:10) writes that a non-Jew who wishes to do other mitzvot in order to receive reward may do so, with limits, and there is a large later literature on which ones and how. That is a question for a rav rather than a web page.
What is shituf, and does it break the first law?
Shituf means associating some other power with God rather than replacing Him. Whether a non-Jew is liable for it is a genuine dispute: the Rema and others hold that non-Jews are not warned against shituf, while other authorities disagree. It is one of the most consequential open questions in this area and it is not settled.
Does eating meat from a living animal ever actually come up?
Rarely as stated, though it has practical edges: taking a piece from an animal before it has fully died, and questions about certain live seafood preparations. Its weight is less in frequency than in placement. It is the first limit the Torah puts on how humans treat animals, and it lands in the same verse that first permits eating them.
How does this relate to the Ten Commandments?
They overlap and they are not the same thing. Murder, theft, adultery and idolatry appear in both. But the Ten were given at Sinai to the Jewish people and include Shabbos, which is not among the seven, while the seven include courts and the limb from a living animal, which are not among the Ten. One set is a covenant with a nation, the other is what is asked of everyone. See the Ten Commandments.
Keep going